NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Nabsys today said that it has raised $20 million in a Series D financing round, which will support the launch of the firm's semiconductor-based single-molecule sequencing platform.
The financing round was led by Bay City Capital, a new investor in the firm, with previous investors Point Judith Capital and Stata Venture Partners also participating.
Barrett Bready, president and CEO of the Providence, RI-based firm, said in a statement that the funding will allow it to build a commercial organization to support the launch of its positional sequencing system with initial applications in genome assembly and finishing and analysis of structural variations in genomes. "Also, because of the scalability of our single-molecule, solid-state, electrical detection technology, we will be able to significantly expand our initial assays and commercialize additional research and diagnostic applications," he added.
Nabsys said that its technology enables high-speed, high-resolution electronic measurement of DNA molecules that are "much longer" than those analyzed by existing sequencing technologies. It added that the data generated by its system will also subsequently be used for clinical applications including electronic karyotyping.
Earlier this year, Nabsys officials told GenomeWeb Daily News sister publication In Sequence that the firm would launch the system in the second half of this year with an initial focus on genome mapping of microbial organisms, followed by applications in assembly and validation of larger genomes, structural variation detection, targeted sequencing, and eventually whole-genome sequencing.
Nabsys' previous financing round in September 2011 brought in $10 million. It has raised at least $41 million in private funding over the past four years.