Abingworth
and Sprout Group Lead Funding
Mountain View, CA, July 9, 2002
– Picoliter Inc.
announced today that the company has raised $22 million in a Series B
financing. Picoliter has developed
ultrasound-based technology for transferring very small volumes of fluid with
high precision. The company’s
unique fluid handling and analysis technology addresses a number of critical
life science and drug discovery markets that in total exceed $1 billion. The co-lead investors, Abingworth and
Sprout Group, will be represented on the company’s board of directors by Dr.
Jonathan MacQuitty and Mr. Vijay Lathi.
“The Series B
financing is another important milestone in the evolution of Picoliter. The funds will allow us to expand our
product development and manufacturing teams and focus on additional applications
of our breakthrough technology,” commented Dr. Elaine J. Heron, Chairman and CEO
of Picoliter. “We are delighted
that Abingworth and Sprout Group, each with long histories in supporting
successful life science firms, joined existing investors Delphi Ventures, Alloy
Ventures, and Palo Alto Investors in this round.”
“In its first two years
Picoliter has demonstrated application of its technology for liquid handling
with biological materials, compound libraries and manufacturing of both arrays
and particles,” stated Dr. Jonathan MacQuitty, President of Abingworth
Management, Inc. “Building on their
strong fundamental understanding of ultrasonics, the company has filed 30 U.S.
patent applications covering general use of the technology for life science
tools as well as targeted, high-value applications like protein crystallization,
pharmaceutical particle manufacturing and sample preparation for mass
spectrometry. The company is now
developing products for applications based on several of its
inventions.”
"PicoliterTM technology has
two powerful advantages over all other liquid handling approaches,” noted Vijay
Lathi, Principal of the Sprout Group.
“First, the ability to dispense fluid samples with no contact and second,
the ability to reliably transfer volumes as tiny as a picoliter
(10-12 liter). Because
these advantages will be critical to improving many processes, including high
throughput screening, cell-based screening and DNA array production, we believe
that the markets for Picoliter products are substantial and
growing."
The company also
announced successful installation of one of its acoustic drop ejection systems
at Hosokawa Micron Group in Osaka, Japan. Picoliter and Hosokawa are working to
together to further develop applications of the ADE technology for the
production of small, uniform and multi-layer particles for pharmaceutical
manufacturing.
About Picoliter
Inc.
Picoliter Inc. is a
development stage company located in Mountain View, CA. The company has developed a novel
technology for moving and analyzing small amounts of liquid using ultrasound
energy. The PicoliterTM
liquid handling technology has broad applications in the life science tools
market including microarrays, dispensing equipment, and living cell transfer
devices.
Members of the
Picoliter management team have successfully brought a wide variety of products
based on new technologies to market.
The company includes individuals with experience in senior management,
array/consumables manufacturing, business development, intellectual property
protection and product development at Affymetrix, Applied Biosystems, Eastman
Kodak, Incyte, International Paper, Molecular Dynamics, Packard Instruments,
Symyx, and Xerox PARC.
Abingworth is an independent venture firm founded
in 1973 and is a key player among life science venture capital investors on both
sides of the Atlantic, having offices in London and Palo Alto. Abingworth has
funds under management of close to $400 million and seven experienced
professionals with operational and venture capital expertise. It has backed more
than 75 life science/medical companies, most of which have gone public or been
acquired. For further information on Abingworth and its portfolio companies
please visit www.abingworth.com.
The Sprout Group is one of
the oldest and largest venture capital firms in the US. Since 1969, Sprout has helped finance
more than 300 companies with combined sales exceeding $40 billion. With offices in Menlo Park, New York and
Chicago, Sprout focuses on helping to grow companies in datacom and telecom,
technology-related services,
enterprise software, and healthcare technology. Sprout Group is a venture capital affiliate of Credit
Suisse First Boston. For further
information on the Sprout Group, please visit their web site at
www.sproutgroup.com.
CONTACTS:
Picoliter
Inc.
Elaine
J. Heron, 650/940-4582
Abingworth
Management, Palo Alto
Jonathan
MacQuitty, 650/565-8296
Sprout Group,
Menlo Park
Vijay Lathi,
650/234-2700
or
Burns McClellan,
New York
Justin Jackson,
212/213-0006