23andMe Raises $200M, Intends To Expand Genetic R&D Arm
A new addition to the growing list of venture-backed unicorns that are raising IPO-sized rounds from private investors instead of going public, Mountain View-based company, 23andMe Inc is now raising $200 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital.
The round is being done at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation. This is about 50% higher than the roughly $1 billion valuation from the last private round.
The company’s investors include Google co-founder Sergey Brin (Wojcicki’s ex-husband) and his company, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates and Johnson & Johnson.
The DNA testing company that turns saliva into in-depth genetic analysis, had previously raised about $240 million and was reported to be valued at about $1.1 billion after its last round in 2015.
The new money is expected to go towards research that 23andMe has been doing since the Food and Drug Administration ordered it to stop selling its personal genomics test in 2013.
23andMe has been leaning extra on its analysis efforts because it was stifled in 2013 after being ordered by the Meals and Drug Administration to stop gross sales of its private genomics take a look at. The FDA stated on the time that the corporate didn’t meet FDA requirements. 23andMe subsequently stopped
The FDA relieved the strain considerably in 2015, permitting for one genetics take a look at for Bloom syndrome, a uncommon recessive gene dysfunction. In one other shock improvement this previous April, 23andMe acquired the inexperienced mild from authorities regulators to promote a service that provides clients a danger evaluation for 10 genetically linked ailments, together with late-onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In accordance with one supply, the corporate can also be in search of approval to start conducting danger evaluation on breast cancer-related genes BRCA-1 and BRCA-2, probably placing a competitor, Colour Genomics, in its cross hairs.
