Venture Capital Firms

Investors, Monsanto and the Wellcome Trust and Sutter Hill Ventures Join in an Additional $68 Million Investment for Pacific Biosciences

Founded in 2004 and based in Menlo Park California, Pacific Biosciences, which is a pioneer in the development of DNA sequencing technology, has announced that it had raised $68 million in additional funding with two new investors joining the company’s existing investors in the funding round. The new investors who joined in the funding are Monsanto and the Wellcome Trust and Sutter Hill Ventures. The company’s existing investors include Deerfield Management, Intel Capital, Morgan Stanley, Redmile Group, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and others.

Pacific Biosciences is a DNA engineering company which is currently doing research with the end goal being the development and commercialization of transformative SMRT technology, which is single molecule real time DNA sequencing that the company hopes to eventually become the gold standard of genetic analysis. One of the greatest achievements that Pacific Biosciences boasts of is that it has won the Advance Sequencing Technology Award from the Human Genome Project, which was intended to develop the $1,000 genome. The SMRT technology that Pacific Biosciences is currently working on is in research stage and the company plans to launch its SMRT technology in 2010.

According to the Chairman of the Board of Governors at Monsanto and the Wellcome Trust, Bill Castell; the team at Monsanto and the Wellcome Trust ecstatic about making investments in a company that is developing a new generation in DNA sequencing technology. What is especially amazing about this technology is that it has the potential to be able to unlock all the inheritance and environmental factors that affect the health of human beings.

According to the company’s CEO, Hugh Martin; the fact that Pacific Biosciences has been able to raise large sums of moneys, which sums to the total of over $188 million since the past summer during difficult economic times, is a testament to the fact that the company’s disruptive technology shows great promise in the marketplace. Mr. Martin also stated that he is very excited that such strategic global investors, such as Monsanto and the Wellcome Trust and Sutter Hill Ventures are joining the company’s growing list of investors.

Sutter Hill Ventures is a vc firm that invests in technology based entrepreneurs who are pioneers in the development of important products and services and devote the Sutter Hill vc team’s time and money to build their companies into world-leading industries. Sutter Hill Ventures was founded in 1964 and has been funding startup companies in the tech industry since that time. Along with the necessary funding, the vc firm also provides entrepreneurs with the expertise and sound advice. Sutter Hill Ventures invests in both private and public companies. Some other companies in Sutter Hill Ventures’ portfolio include Acceleron Pharma, AKARx, Aspect Medical Systems, BARRX Medical, Info Medics, Kalypto Medical, Threshold Pharmaceuticals, and others.

For more information about Pacific Biosciences, click here.

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