Martinsried, Germany-based PreOmics has received EUR 13.5 million in Series B financing from Bruker Cooperation. This is intended to accelerate the research, development and commercialization of proteomics applications and consumables.
PreOmics GmbH develops innovative automation and sample preparation tools and consumables for proteomics analysis using mass spectrometry. The company won the m4 Award pre-seed competition in 2013 and was founded in 2016 by Dr. Garwin Pichler and Dr. Nils A. Kulak as a spin-off from the laboratory of leading proteomics researcher Prof. Matthias Mann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried.
PreOmics' technologies for automated sample processing for mass spectrometry-based protein analysis have been stated to be a good fit with Bruker's high-performance instruments as well as proteomics mass spectrometry systems from other leading proteomics companies.
Synergies expected to expand market opportunities for each platform
The partners thus expect to improve market opportunities for both PreOmics' BeatBox platform technologies and Bruker's timsTOF 4D proteomics platform. The target groups for the automated workflow solutions are academic and clinical research, biomarker and diagnostics companies, CROs and biopharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Garwin Pichler, co-founder and CEO of PreOmics, is excited about the expanded investment in R&D, marketing and sales, and also about bringing Bruker on board as a collaboration partner and major investor: "Bruker shares our vision to make advanced technologies for proteomic analysis available to everyone and to accelerate our growth through financing. Our existing and future customers and partners will benefit from the investments at PreOmics and synergies in proteomics solutions to expand our product offering and global footprint."
Dr. Nils A. Kulak, also co-founder and CEO of PreOmics, added, "We see a promising future for PreOmics' research, development and commercialization activities, accelerated by the Series B financing and Bruker as a partner. Our novel BeatBox technology is seamlessly compatible with PreOmics' proteomics sample preparation technologies and, when combined with timsTOF Pro, provides complete workflows for processing large tissue biobanks. Our goal is to develop complete, user-friendly and automated BeatBox-based workflows for any throughput, providing solutions for highly efficient proteomic analysis."
Spin-off with the m4 Award
Dr. Petra Burgstaller and Christina Enke-Stolle, responsible at BioM for the virtual incubator inQlab and all start-up topics, congratulate the m4 Award spin-off: "We are very happy about the successful financing of PreOmics and what success stories the m4 Award writes."
With the m4 Award, initiated by BioM in 2011, the Free State of Bavaria promotes innovative products, technologies or services of young companies that decisively advance the further development of medicine of the future. The prize is awarded every two years. In the five rounds of the competition so far, a total of 25 research projects have received awards. Nine spin-offs have since been realized.
Bruker is now majority investor
In line with the Series B financing, several early investors in PreOmics, such as High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Think.Health Ventures, as well as a number of business angels, have successfully sold their PreOmics shares to Bruker in a parallel secondary transaction, making Bruker now a majority investor in PreOmics. Financial details of the secondary transactions were not disclosed.
Dr. Frank H. Laukien, president and CEO of Bruker Corporation, said, "We are very pleased to invest in PreOmics, a leading proteomics sample preparation, automation and consumables company, through this Series B financing. By acquiring a majority stake in PreOmics, Bruker is expanding its proteomics vision to include PreOmics' unique sample preparation technologies as well as complete, automated, robust and reproducible workflows for translational biomarker and biopharma proteomics research."