Mercia backs genetic engineering firm as having the DNA of an emerging star
MIDLANDS investment group Mercia Technologies is to put £2m into a genetic engineering firm.
Mercia will increase its direct stake in pharmaceutical research company Oxford Genetics to 36% when it invests the first tranche of £1m, although third party investments which it also controls increase its holdings to 69%.
The investment group then expects to put in a second tranche of £1m within eight months, dependent on the achievement of some milestones.
Dr Mark Payton, chief executive of Mercia Technologies, said: “Having worked closely with Oxford Genetics since the original investment by our third party funds in 2013, I have seen the business grow into a bespoke online service for the biopharma research and development industries.
“Oxford Genetics is an exemplar of our Complete Capital Solution. We invested at seed level via our third party funds, working with Oxford Genetics’ founder to establish and develop the business. We then completed a number of further early stage funding rounds before now bringing the company across as a direct investment, as it establishes commercial traction in its target markets.”
This deal is the 16th direct investment by Mercia in its financial year, which ends in two weeks. Its model is based on identifying companies it calls “emerging stars”, which have high-growth potential after receiving funding from third party funds, and then increasing its involvement by investing directly.
Last week’s acquisition of Enterprise Ventures, a provider of early stage and growth finance through third party managed funds in the North of England, was designed to increase its ability to identify these emerging stars, which it can then look to grow and create significant future value for shareholders.
Its investment in Oxford Genetics will enable the company to accelerate both its research and market penetration through the development of significant commercial partnerships. It was identified as an emerging star company because it successful developed its proprietary technology, SnapFast, which makes DNA assembly significantly more efficient for research and production purposes.
Since receiving its first seed investment from Mercia’s third party funds in 2013, Oxford Genetics has built one of the world’s largest libraries of plasmid DNA “building blocks” for simplified genetic engineering, using SnapFast.
