Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a British biotech firm, has announced that it’s raised £84.4 million ($110 million) in new funding from a group of new and existing investors including Railpen Investments, an investment arm of the UK Railways Pension Scheme, and the International Holdings Company (IHC), an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm. The company says it’ll use the new capital to support its commercial and manufacturing operations as well as ongoing research and development in the field of nanopore sequencing.

The new round brings the total amount of funding raised this year alone by Oxford Nanopore to £162 million ($211 million) and places the company’s valuation at £1.7 billion ($2.2 billion). Altogether, Oxford Nanopore has now raised £800 million ($1 billion) in funding since its inception. The company’s new raise comes on the heels of a business boost as it forayed outside its main business of nanopore sequencing and began producing coronavirus test kits amid the pandemic. It’s such that Oxford Nanopore has won a £113 million ($146 million) contract to supply coronavirus test kits in the UK and has also pursued trials in the US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

As Oxford Nanopore works on scaling its coronavirus tests, the company is also looking to accelerate the commercialization and scaling of its major nanopore sequencing work. Oxford Nanopore as a company was spun out from the University of Oxford in 2005, hence its name, and has remained a private company since then. The company produces devices used for nanopore sequencing, having rolled out its first commercial product in 2015. 

Oxford Nanopore was founded 15 years ago with seed funding from the IP Group, a publicly-traded UK-based intellectual property company that specializes in the commercialization of university research and development. Thanks to its seed backing, IP Group currently holds a lucrative 15% stake in Oxford Nanopore. 

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