bitBiome, Inc., a Tokyo, Japan-based microbiome analytics company, raised 700 million JPY (approx. $6.6m US) in Series B financing.
Backers included The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, Universal Materials Incubator, and other Japan-based venture capital firms.
This new funding, which brings bitBiome’s total equity financing to 1.05 billion yen (approx. $10m US), will support the company’s growth in the following areas:
- In-house research to analyze the relationship between microbes and disease states
- In-house research to analyze the relationship between microbes and disease states
- Purchasing lab equipment (including a next-generation sequencer) to further strengthen R&D capabilities and throughput
- Acceleration of global business development
- Securing and maintaining intellectual property
- Talent acquisition
Founded in November 2018 as a spinout from Waseda University, bitBiome provides the proprietary bit-MAP® platform, a single-cell genome analysis technology specific to microorganisms. Using this platform, rapid, comprehensive, and accurate analysis of unknown microbes can be achieved, without requiring the isolation and cultivation of the cells or complicated data processing typically required in conventional microbiome research. bitBiome provides this technology to academic and corporate partners, mainly in the pharmaceutical and agricultural fields, for next-generation microbiome analysis.
FinSMEs
02/09/2020