NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Synthetic DNA provider Twist Bioscience announced today that it has closed a $50 million private placement.
"We have used our proprietary DNA synthesis platform, which delivers precision at a scale previously not available, to develop a portfolio of diverse products for two large market opportunities — the synthetic biology market through our gene and oligo pool offerings, and the next-generation sequencing market through our exome and custom target enrichment solutions," Twist CEO Emily Leproust said in a statement. "We plan to use a portion of these funds to invest in the emerging vertical market opportunity presented by storing digital data in DNA, as well as forward integration toward drug discovery."
Twist said it has raised $259 million since it was founded in 2013. Last month, the company entered the next-generation sequencing sample prep market with the launch of its first target enrichment products.