Rubicon Genomics completes $2 million growth capital financing

Rubicon Genomics, Inc., a provider of innovative pre-analytical reagent kits to improve the performance of genomic analytical platforms and enable the use of liquid biopsies, today announced that it has completed a $2 million growth capital financing. The financing was led by BroadOak Capital Partners, a life sciences focused merchant bank, and included participation from Research Corporation Technologies, Inc. Proceeds from the financing will primarily be used to accelerate the development of new and enhanced products and to strengthen Rubicon's sales and marketing capabilities. Recent product launches helped propel a 40% increase in year-over-year sales at Rubicon in the first half of 2015.

"Rubicon has built a reputation as a leader in the provision of the pre-analytical kits that increase the accuracy, efficiency and speed of many routine genomic analyses, while also enabling some of the most challenging studies," said Bill Snider, Managing Partner, BroadOak Capital Partners. "This investment reflects our view that Rubicon is an important player in one of the fastest growing markets in life sciences--next-generation sequencing (NGS)."

"We welcome the support of our new investors at this exciting time in Rubicon's growth," said Rubicon CEO James Koziarz, PhD. "Sales of our unique kits that make DNA analyses more accurate and efficient have been on a steady upward trajectory, and our strong showing in the first half of 2015 is a testament to the growing use of our value-adding products. This new financing will allow us to accelerate our new product development efforts and expand our sales and marketing capabilities to meet the rising demand for our products, including our new ThruPLEX^® Plasma-seq Kit that enables the use of liquid biopsies for cancer and other applications."

Rubicon's improved ThruPLEX^® DNA-seq Kit expands the multiplexing capability of earlier versions and delivers higher performance while maintaining a single tube, three-step workflow. PicoPLEX™ DNA-seq Kit simplifies single cell library preparation for Illumina platforms and reproducibly detects aneuploidies and CNVs. PicoPLEX™ WGA Kits are the industry standard for pre-implementation genetic screening and deliver important advantages in other single cell applications. Rubicon's new ThruPLEX Plasma-seq Kit is designed to help detect circulating biomarkers and other genetic mutations using blood-based liquid biopsies, increasing the feasibility of ongoing monitoring and reducing the need for invasive and costly tissue biopsies.