NEW YORK – Rare cell analysis firm RareCyte said on Thursday that is has raised $22 million from new and existing investors.
The financing was led by HealthQuest Capital, with participation from 5AM Ventures and RareCyte founder Ron Seubert.
The Seattle-based company plans to use the new funds to expand sales of its platform globally. The platform includes the AccuCyte sample preparation system, RarePlex staining kits, CyteFinder instruments, and the CytePicker retrieval module. RareCyte recently launched the CyteFinder II platform for tissue analysis.
"This funding will allow RareCyte to accelerate our global sales and marketing efforts, fund development of applications for our new tissue multiplexing platform, and release new liquid biopsy assays," said RareCyte President and CEO Joe Victor in a statement.
"RareCyte's well-differentiated, integrated platform can be applied to both liquid biopsy and tissue samples and will enable next-generation precision medicine applications in numerous life sciences market segments," said David Kabakoff, a partner at HealthQuest Capital who joined RareCyte's board of directors.
"RareCyte has validated its rare single-cell platform with research and biopharma customers for numerous liquid biopsy assays, and those products plus the recently released tissue applications will be a catalyst for future growth," said Andy Schwab, managing partner at 5AM Ventures.
The new funding adds to $30 million RareCyte raised in a private financing round in 2017.