Venture capitalDNA data management specialist DNAnexus secures $15 million in Series C financing

Mountain View, California-based DNAnexus, a specialist in cloud-based solutions for large-scale DNA data management and analysis, on Friday announced that it has closed a $15 million Series C funding led by Claremont Creek Ventures, Google Ventures, TPG Biotech, and First Round Capital. The company says that its Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is being adopted by more customers seeking a solution to the needs of global enterprises face when building clinically compliant analysis pipelines for DNA sequence data.

DNAnexus says it was designed to accelerate basic science and clinical breakthroughs by providing a centralized hub for managing data, collaborating with other scientists, sharing tools, and accessing diverse reference datasets, including genotypic and phenotypic data. The company notes that the platform provides labs a secure and compliant cloud platform that supports the unlimited scaling of computational and storage resources. DNAnexus allows global collaborators can connect, while remaining compliant with HIPAA, CLIA, and international regulatory requirements.

Richard Daly, CEO of DNAnexus, commented: “This is an exciting time of growth for DNAnexus. This funding will significantly expand our capacity to support the growing number of commercial and academic labs around the world utilizing our platform to manage DNA data and analyses in a clinically appropriate manner. We welcome Claremont Creek Ventures to the team and are pleased with the continued support from Google Ventures, TPG Biotech, and First Round Capital.”

Recently, DNAnexus announced large-scale projects with Stanford University and Baylor College of Medicine that demonstrate the value of the company’s platform in processing tens of thousands of genomes and making the resulting data sets securely available to researchers around the world.

The company says that through these two projects alone, it processed over 17,000 genomes and generated more than 500 terabytes of genomic data. The resulting data sets can be accessed on DNAnexus and are available for follow-on analysis and data sharing to researchers participating in the 1,000 Genomes Project and the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium.

Nat Goldhaber, managing director at Claremont Creek Ventures and new DNAnexus Board Member added, “We are thrilled to support an important computational tool that will accelerate the critical transition from pure research to ubiquitous clinical application.”

“The next wave of insights in genetics comes from multi-institutional collaborative efforts producing huge amounts of data. DNAnexus has created a system where large enterprises, laboratories, and individuals can collaborate more efficiently using modern cloud technologies,” said Krishna Yeshwant, Google Ventures general partner and DNAnexus Board Member. “DNAnexus is changing how global biomedical research and development markets manage DNA data and analytic infrastructures.”