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Split Biosciences Rebrands as Parse Biosciences, Raises $7M in Series A Financing

NEW YORK – Parse Biosciences, formerly known as Split Biosciences, announced Tuesday it has raised $7 million in Series A financing.

Bioeconomy Capital led the round, joined by new investors and existing angel investors. Parse will use the funds to scale the commercial roll-out of its whole-transcriptome assay kit for single-cell RNA sequencing.

"From the sheer scalability of their technology, to the entirely unique flexibility that their single-cell sequencing kits provides to researchers, Parse Biosciences is creating a new standard for the single cell market," Rob Carlson, managing director at Bioeconomy Capital, said in a statement. "We’re excited to back this emerging leader of the industry and support their continued expansion to serve labs all over the world."

Seattle-based Parse is a University of Washington spinout commercializing split-pool ligation-based transcriptome sequencing (SPLiT-seq), a single-cell RNA-seq method that chemically fixes and immobilizes cells instead of physically isolating them. In contrast to some popular droplet-based single-cell sequencing methods, SPLiT-seq does not require additional specialized instrumentation.

The new financing adds to approximately $1.2 million in seed financing raised by Split Bio in 2018.

"We have spent the last three years developing a product that more scientists could actually use," Parse Biosciences Cofounder and CTO Charlie Roco said in a statement. "Our kits are now operating at a higher level than anything else we’ve seen on the market and our company has evolved beyond our original SPLiT-seq method. We wanted our brand to reflect that."

Bioeconomy Capital provided seed funding to Bellwether Bio, another UW spinout, which was acquired by Guardant Health in 2019.

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