Twist Bioscience raises $37M Series C from Illumina

Twist Bioscience

Twist Bioscience, which is focused on synthetic DNA, has completed its Series C round totaling $37 million. The investment was led by Illumina, with participation from new investors Fidelity Management and Research Company, and Foresite Capital Management, as well as all existing investors including Nick and Joby Pritzker (through their family’s firm Tao Invest), ARCH Venture Partners, Paladin Capital Group, Yuri Milner, and additional strategic corporate and venture investors.

“Working with a select group of customers following our alpha manufacturing launch in April, we are now focused on validating the fit between our proprietary product offering and the wide variety of customer needs for synthetic DNA,” said Emily Leproust, Ph.D., CEO of Twist Bioscience. “This funding will allow us to accelerate into a beta commercial launch this fall. In addition, we intend to pursue strategic opportunities to add product capabilities and services to further enhance the Twist Bioscience user experience.”

As part of the deal, Nicholas J. Naclerio, Ph.D., Illumina’s senior vice president of corporate development and general manager of enterprise informatics will join the Twist Bioscience board of directors. He joins Rob Chess, chairman of the board of Nektar Therapeutics; Paul Conley, Ph.D., managing director of Paladin Capital Group; Keith Crandell, co-founder and managing director of ARCH Venture Partners; Fred Craves, Ph.D., founder and managing director of Bay City Capital; Bill Banyai, Ph.D., chief operating officer at Twist Bioscience; and Emily Leproust, Ph.D., CEO of Twist Bioscience, on the board of directors.

Since its founding in 2013, Twist has raised a total of $82.1 million.