26 Oct 2011
YFM Equity Partners backs Sirigen in $3m fundraising
UK Biomedical firm Sirigen has announced it has raised $3m of further finance, which it will use to support the commercialization of its High Sensitivity FluorescenceTM ("HSFTM") amplification technology.
The finance round was led by YFM Equity Partners, through the Seraphim Capital Fund and British Smaller Companies VCT 2 alongside a syndicate of other investors including Oxford Capital Partners, IQ Capital and NESTA.
In 2000 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the discovery of a unique class of conducting polymer materials which are revolutionizing the electronic and display industries and are the foundation of Sirigen's technology. Sirigen's platform agnostic, enabling technology represents a quantum leap in detection capabilities, amplifying the sensitivity of a wide range of existing instrumentation and detection platforms by up to 100 fold.
Sirigen's technology is applicable to a diverse cross section of the biomedical industry including the $6billion drug discovery industry which can use Sirigen to test the efficacy of new drugs, the $12billion life sciences industry which can use Sirigen to develop new detection platforms, and the $35billion diagnostics industry. Sirigen's light harvesting technology acts as an amplifier, dramatically improving the sensitivity of clinical tests used in drug discovery and the diagnosis of health disorders such as blood cancers. They enable tests that would previously have been 'not sensitive enough' and the potential for speedier testing with less sensitive equipment.
Sirigen's Chairman David Evans, the former CEO of Shield Diagnostic and chairman of DxS, a molecular diagnostic firm acquired by Qiagen said: "We've passed an important milestone launching our Brilliant Violet product on market in May 2010 through BioLegend. We've seen strong demand and we have a pipeline of further ground-breaking products imminently being launched".
Mark Boggett, Director of YFM Equity Partners said "We are excited to be backing Sirigen through a period of transformational change. There is clear momentum in the marketplace with the leading diagnostic and life science companies all looking to bring innovative next generation products to their customers. Sirigen is attracting the interest of the major players in the market and we look forward to announcing further significant channel relationships in the coming months."