Triangle firm hauls in $21.7 million toward goal; looks to expand client base

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A Triangle life sciences firm has brought in a new $21.7 million from investors as it looks to continue developing its technology, with another $26.2 left in its fundraising sights.

This week, Morrisville-based Metabolon disclosed the nearly $22 million fundraising round in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the filing, the company began raising the funds on Aug. 28, with a total offering of $48 million of company equity.

Metabolon focuses on metabolomics technology for research and precision medicine, which involves using genes and other factors to individualize a patient’s treatment. Its technology is used across multiple research areas when it comes to personalized medicine, from cancer to immunology.

According to a company representative, the “incremental funding” is targeting to “help accelerate our growth and expand our client base, in addition to helping further our R&D programs in machine learning to enable novel biomarker discovery and expand our precision medicine platform.”

The company’s recent SEC filing shows just 11 investors participated in the $21.7 million raise.

Metabolon’s customers range from academic institutions looking to answer complex biological questions to biopharmaceutical companies looking to glean more scientific data from their clinical trials.

The new fundraising comes after the company joined a new $20 million European Union-supported international research consortium known as SOPHIA (Stratification of Obese Phenotypes to Optimize Future Obesity Therapy) – which includes 29 leading private and public research organizations in 12 countries.

The raise is the second cash infusion the company, led by CEO Rohan F. Hastie, has seen in 2020 – despite the variety of challenges the pandemic has presented to financial markets. In March, the company disclosed a $7.7 million offering in which 11 investors also participated.

The pair of raises already vastly outpaces the company’s 2019 fundraising activity, during which it reported just one, $1.5 million offering. In 2018, the company announced a $7.8 million raise.

Original Article Source: Triangle Business Journal