Bioinformatics startup InterpretOmics has snagged $1.6 million (Rs 10 crore) from a slate of angel backers, seeking to grow its business of providing cloud-based software for analyzing genomics data, the company said last week. The only named investor was the Singapore-based shipping company Amarante.
InterpretOmics CEO Prahalad H. Achutharao founded the company in 2009 with Asoke Talukder, who serves as chief scientific officer. Achutharao, who was trained in computer science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, previously worked for India's major IT outsourcing company Infosys ($INFY) and other technology companies, VCCircle.com reported.
DNA sequencing has become fast and relatively cheap, yet the challenge for researchers and companies in agricultural genomics, bio energy and, of course, life sciences is wading through the huge amounts of data to make discoveries. InterpretOmics aims to serve all of those sectors with a cloud-based software offering called iOMICS, which aggregates and structures genomics and biological data.
A lot of companies are already doing this. DNAnexus, Eureka Genomics and Personalis are just a few of many tackling various aspects of analyzing DNA data. Yet InterpretOmics aims to use the low cost of labor in India to undercut rivals with a price tag of about $100 to analyze a genome, TechCrunch reported.
InterpretOmics has already captured business from such customers as the Joint Genome Institute in the U.S., the University of Delaware, the Indian biotech company Biocon and major research institutes in its home country.
- see VCCircle.com's piece
- and TechCrunch's article