RainDance Technologies nailed down up to $35 million in debt financing to support the global commercial expansion of its gene sequencing tools that help diagnostics companies and researchers do their jobs better.
Capital Royalty Partners is handling the financing. It follows a $20 million Series E equity round the Massachusetts company announced in April that included new investor Myriad Genetics ($MYGN). Both funding rounds are designed to support the accelerated global commercial rollout of RainDance's ThunderStorm next-generation targeted gene sequencing system and its RainDrop Digital PCR, which performs liquid biopsies to help detect circulating nucleic acids. Each system enables research on the detection of cancer, plus inherited and infectious diseases.
Roopom Banerjee, RainDance's president and CEO, told FierceMedicalDevices that the debt financing will help the company "comfortably achieve profitability, while significantly raising our level of investment in commercial infrastructure and manufacturing." He added that the capital infusion comes at a crucial time for RainDance.
RainDance, he said, "is a private company in a challenging venture capital environment. Capitalization is really important, and being able to support growth, even more so. This is quite central to our expansion at a time when business is very rapidly accelerating."
Aside from the latest debt funding, RainDance has raised $100 million in equity financing since its 2004 launch. The company also moved from Lexington, MA, to a much larger facility in nearby Billerica, giving it expanded manufacturing capacity for its products. Banerjee added that RainDance has hired 30 people so far this year and now employs nearly 100 overall.
RainDance has booked more than $5 million in revenue per quarter since launching its expanded commercialization push, and is pacing to reach $20 million in revenue for the year, he said. Sale have grown robustly in North America, the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, Banerjee said.
Earlier in April, RainDance and Myriad announced a multi-year deal to use RainDance technology for Myriad's next-generation gene-sequencing test for hereditary cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center formed a similar arrangement with RainDance for its recently launched gene sequencing test for acute myeloid leukemia.
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