Venture Wire Professional: Personalized Medicine Co. Genoptix Raises $13M In Series D Extension
August 11, 2005
By Lisa Lacy
Personalized medicine company Genoptix Inc. has completed a $13 million financing that it is calling a Series 1-D, an extension of its fourth equity round.
Chicago Growth Partners, the sole new investor, led the investment. Existing shareholders taking part in the round included Enterprise Partners, Alliance Technology Ventures, Tullis-Dickerson & Co. Inc., U.S. Trust's Excelsior Venture Partners III, LLC and Lotus Bioscience Investment Holdings.
In conjunction with the 1-D financing, Genoptix has entered into a credit facility with Comerica Bank for $4.3 million for working capital and equipment financing.
The new financing closed on August 3 and follows a $6 million Series D round that closed one year prior. Before the D round, Genoptix had raised a total of $34.5 million. Chief Executive Tina Nova said that after the latest investment, roughly 85% of the company is held by outside investors.
Nova said the new round is being called a Series 1-D because of "what the investors preferred" and does not represent any recapitalization.
Genoptix is a clinical reference laboratory focused on hematolymphatic disorders. Nova said the company provides services for the detection of "everything related to leukemia and lymphoma."
Proceeds from the new round will be used for continued growth -- including sales and marketing as well as laboratory capacity.
The company was founded in 2000 focused on both diagnostic products and services company. Before shifting focus exclusively to services in July 2003, it received backing from Kingsbury Capital Partners, Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsubishi International Corp.- none of which participated in recent rounds.
Genoptix, which launched its services model in mid-2004, offers a panel of tests to aid in the diagnosis of what therapy to give to a patient with a blood cancer, said Chicago Growth Partners Founding Partner Arda Minocherhomjee.
Most of Genoptix's tests -- including blood/bone marrow morphology, flow cytometry, cytogenetics and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction - are in the $1500 range and Nova expects $3 million to $4 million in revenue this year.
She said the large clinical labs such as Quest Diagnostics Inc. and Laboratory Corp. of America have only "pieces of this testing."
Chicago Growth Partners' Minocherhomjee agreed. "The problem is that in most cases a company doesn't offer all the services. A physician ends up getting results from different places at different times and is supposed to figure out what to do with three or four pieces of paper to determine what course of action to take."
Genoptix was previously developing a device that uses lightwaves to measure cells and then analyze individual responses to treatment for leukemia and other blood-related tumors. Chairman Drew Senyei of Enterprise said the products business was recently spun off to a private company, but declined to comment on its backing.
As a result of the recent financing, Minocherhomjee joined the eight-member Genoptix board that also includes Senyei; Tim Buono of Tullis-Dickerson & Co., Inc.; Michael Henos and Robert Curry of Alliance Technology Ventures; Thomas Waltz of Scripps Clinic; and Stephen Spotts of Pathology Partners.
Founded in 2000, the San Diego-based company has 50 employees and is hiring broadly.