January 31, 2019
Microbiome discovery platform company Eagle Genomics announces funding of $3.5M led by the Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners), a European growth fund specialising in promoting sustainability through innovation. The raise will accelerate the development of Eagle Genomics’ award-winning software platform to meet rapidly growing demand from enterprise companies in the consumer goods, agritech and healthcare industries.
Other institutional investors include the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Newable Private Investing.
The investment will also support global expansion, with plans to open international offices in Paris and New York to service the European and American markets.
The microbiome, the ecosystem of bacteria, fungi and viruses present in virtually all living organisms, is directly linked with health and is proven to be affected by the products we use and consume. Eagle Genomics’ ground-breaking knowledge discovery platform, the e[automateddatascientist], utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze complex genomic and microbiomic data at scale, delivering new insight and allowing enterprise brands to assess the viability, efficacy and safety of products.
The funding round follows the recently announced partnership between Eagle Genomics and Microsoft Genomics, which marked Microsoft’s first venture into the microbiome. With momentum from this partnership and a significant market opportunity to address, Eagle Genomics is well positioned to revolutionise life sciences R&D.
CEO of Eagle Genomics, Anthony Finbow commented: “We are delighted to have secured investment from ETF Partners. Our shared belief that technological innovation is the key to improving human health and the environment will drive us to meet the grand challenges of our age. We look forward to expanding our fantastic team globally to deploy our platform to support our enterprise customers worldwide.” Managing Partner at ETF Partners, Robert Genieser commented: “With the unique expertise of the Eagle Genomics team and the technology ecosystem already in place, the company is extremely well placed to enable the exploration of the microbiome at scale.”
He added: “From the environmental perspective, the small organisms that constitute the microbiome should be characterized as important building blocks for the greater biosphere, as they live in a symbiotic relationship with host organisms. Simply put, if one wants to ensure both bio-diversity, and the ongoing vitality of larger species, it is critically important to understand the role that these organisms play.”