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Xagenic announces $15 million financing round with Series B investors

MI_xagenicTORONTO (July 9, 2015) — Xagenic, a molecular diagnostics company developing the lab-free Xagenic X1™ platform for point-of-care use, today announced that it has raised $15 million (CAD). Each of the company’s Series B investors has participated in this financing, including Domain Associates, CTI Life Sciences, BDC Capital and the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation.

PE Hub, Cantech Letter, Genome Web, Fierce Medical Devices and the Wall Street Journal‘s Venture Capital Dispatch blog covered this announcement.

In June, Xagenic also announced it has acquired exclusive rights to a mutation detection technology with potential applications to liquid biopsy testing. The electrochemical clamp assay technology was developed by University of Toronto Professor and Xagenic Founder (now CTO) Dr. Shana Kelley. Genome Web covered the news in June and July 2015.

“This investment round is a testament to the faith our existing investors have in the power of the Xagenic X1™ platform and the promise of our enzyme-free approach to molecular diagnostics,” said Timothy I. Still, Xagenic’s CEO. “This funding will accelerate our development efforts in bringing our point-of-care diagnostic platform to market.”

Xagenic’s rapid, lab-free, molecular diagnostic system affords a large market opportunity created by a significant, unmet medical need for point-of-care diagnostic solutions. Because of its highly scalable, consumables-driven business model, Xagenic is well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity with a differentiated product offering and unique menu strategy.

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Xagenic founder Shana Kelley’s MRI blog post on bringing research to market

U of T professor shares tips to her team’s commercialization success

Xagenic logo CroppedWhen it comes to bringing research from the lab to the market, the University of Toronto’s Dr. Shana Kelley knows firsthand what it takes. She’s co-founder of Xagenic, a MaRS Innovation and U of T start-up company that’s developed the first lab-free molecular diagnostic platform with a 20-minute time-to-result based on her research with fellow U of T colleague Professor Edward Sargent.

Xagenic recently announced a Series B financing announcement following their successful $10 million Series A round and more than $2 million seed funding round.

In her guest blog post for the Ministry of Research and Innovation, Kelley outlines what she’s learned through her experience in the commercialization process (emphasis ours):

1. When ready to commercialize, look in your own backyard for investment and support

Shana Kelley, co-founder of Xagenic Inc.
Dr. Shana Kelley, co-founder of Xagenic Inc. and University of Toronto professor.

When the Xagenic technology was mature enough to consider commercialization, we started to call venture investors all over the world to see if we could get them to back the company.  We always got the meetings we wanted, and lots of enthusiasm and encouragement, but it was difficult to get people engaged. We were fortunate to get seed funding from a group of local organizations including MaRS Innovation, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, the Innovation Acceleration Fund (IAF), and Ontario Centres of Excellence and then finally found the group that would eventually be our Series A lead investors, CTI Life Sciences Fund.

With CTI, we immediately got the traction we had been looking for from a venture investor that indicated genuine interest in the company. When we later made the rounds for the Series B investment outside of Canada, we repeatedly heard the comment: “we’re glad to see you could do the Series A in your own backyard.”

When I probed about why this was important, I found that the investment community thinks it is important to have your early investors as close geographically as possible. The level of interaction when a company gets off the group needs to be fairly intense — being geographically closer helps entrepreneurs and investors keep in better contact. This is definitely not a hard-and-fast rule, but I found it interesting that many investors had this perception. And it creates a particular challenge for Canadian companies given how little venture capital is available locally!

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FedDev Ontario awards Xagenic Inc. $990,000 through Investing in Business Innovation initiative

TORONTO, Feb. 19, 2013 — Xagenic Inc., a privately-held molecular diagnostics company, today announced that it will receive up to $990,000 in funding from the Government of Canada to support design and development of the first lab-free molecular diagnostic platform with a 20-minute time to result.

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), made the announcement in the keynote speech at the Conference Board of Canada’s Business Innovation Summit 2013 in Toronto this morning.

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Xagenic Raises $10 million in Series A Financing

TORONTO (January 30, 2012) – Xagenic Inc., a start-up company created by Dr. Shana Kelley, in partnership with MaRS Innovation, today reached a significant milestone by successfully completing series A financing totaling $10 million.

The financing comes from sources from the private and public sector including CTI Life Sciences Fund L.P., Qiagen N.V. and the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation through its Emerging Technologies Fund.

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