Portfolio company Oxford Nanopore raises ?31.4m

RNS Number : 6270C

IP Group PLC

03 May 2012

 



 

FOR RELEASE ON

03 MAY 2012

IP Group plc - Portfolio company Oxford Nanopore announces £31.4m fundraising

IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Company" or "the Group"), the developer of intellectual property based businesses, is pleased to note that portfolio company Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd ("Oxford Nanopore"), a spin-out company from the University of Oxfordthat is developing a disruptive technology for the real-time electronic analysis of single molecules, has raised £31.4 million in new funding via a private placement of ordinary shares.

Following completion of the financing round, IP Group's 21.3% undiluted beneficial stake in Oxford Nanopore is valued at £66.5 million. The fundraising will result in a further unrealised fair value gain to IP Group of £26.4 million. IP Group and IP Venture Fund have committed £6.7 million and £0.4 million respectively to the fundraising. This transaction brings the total funds raised by Oxford Nanopore since its foundation in 2005 to £105.4 million.

Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore, said: "This round of funding, nearly all of which comes from existing investors, will support a range of corporate development activities including the development of our commercial infrastructure, expansion of our manufacturing function and further R&D for our DNA/RNA sequencing and protein/miRNA analysis applications.  We will also continue to maintain our leadership position in nanopore innovation through maintenance and expansion of our broad intellectual property portfolio."

Oxford Nanopore is developing nanopore technology for the direct, electronic analysis of single molecules and announced earlier this year that it intends to commercialise both its GridION platform and its MinION device directly to customers within 2012. MinION is a disposable DNA sequencing device that is the size of a USB memory stick and is expected to retail at less than $900.

For more information, please contact:

IP Group plc	www.ipgroupplc.com
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive Officer	[phone]
Liz Vaughan-Adams, Communications	[phone] / [phone] [e-mail]
FTI Consulting
Ben Atwell, John Dineen	[phone]

Notes for editors

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading UK intellectual property ("IP") commercialisation company, developing technology innovations primarily from its research intensive partner universities. The Group offers more than traditional venture capital, providing its companies with access to business building expertise, networks, recruitment and business support.

The Company's portfolio comprises holdings in over 60 companies including Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the DNA sequencing development company, Revolymer, best known for its removable chewing gum and Xeros, which has received many accolades for its revolutionary clothes washing techniques with a much reduced requirement for water.

The portfolio includes early stage to mature businesses and has exposure to five main sectors - Energy & Renewables, Medical Equipment & Supplies, Pharma & Biotech, IT & Communications and Chemicals & Materials. To date, fourteen of the portfolio companies IP Group has backed have listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and one on PLUS Markets.

Founded in 2001, IP Group listed on AIM in October 2003 and moved to the Official List in June 2006. The Group now has long-term partnerships with twelve core universities including those under its commercialisation agreement with Fusion IP plc.

For more information, please visit our website at www.ipgroupplc.com.

About Oxford Nanopore

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd is developing a novel technology for direct, electronic detection and analysis of single molecules using nanopores. The modular, scalable GridION technology platformand miniaturised MinION instrument are designed to offer substantial benefits in a variety of applications.

The Company's lead application is DNA sequencing which combines a nanopore with a processive enzyme for the analysis of DNA.  Oxford Nanopore is also developing a Protein Analysis application that combines target proteins, aptamers and nanopores for direct, electronic analyses of those target proteins. These nanopore sensing techniques are combined with the Company's proprietary electronics-based GridION and MinION systems. The Company also has collaborations for the development of solid-state nanopores.

Oxford Nanopore has collaborations and exclusive licensing deals with leading institutions including the University of Oxford, Harvard and UCSC. The Company has funding programmes in these laboratories to support the science of nanopore sensing. Oxford Nanopore has licensed or owns more than 350 patents and patent applications that relate to many aspects of nanopore sensing from protein nanopores to solid state nanopores and for the analysis of DNA, proteins and other molecules. This includes the use of functionalised solid-state nanopores for molecular characterisation, methods of fabricating solid-state nanopores and modifications of solid-state nanopores to adjust sensitivity or other parameters.

www.nanoporetech.com.

Zoe McDougall, Communications, Oxford Nanopore

[e-mail]

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