Stemgent rakes in $11M, largest round to date

Cambridge stem cell research company Stemgent Inc. has taken $11.3 million in equity, the largest round to date for the four-and-a-half year old company, according to federal filings.

The 40-plus employee company, headquartered in Kendall Square with another research and development site in San Diego, Calif., has filed for more than $40 million in debt and equity investment to date. Most recent is a $6.3 million round in February, which came from eight investors who were not listed on the filing. At the time, CEO Ian Ratcliffe told Mass High Tech that the company would use the new funding to expand its licensed intellectual property around stem cell reagents, as well as expanding its existing operations and product lines.

The current filing indicates that the $11.3 million comes from eight backers, with related persons listed as board members Stefan Miltenyi, founder of German biotech; Harold Werner and Augustine Lawlor of HealthCare Ventures LLC of Cambridge; and Ralph Christofferson of Morganthaler Partners of Ohio. No one from the company was available for comment Monday.

The companys mission is to support cellular reprogramming research by producing products being designed by stem cell researchers. In January 2010, it launched a custom cell line generation service to provide companies with induced pluripotent stem cells - adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem celllike state. Two months later, it launched Ubiquigent Ltd., a subsidiary based in Scotland which produces technology focused on the biology of the ubiquitin protesome pathway (UPP).

In June, Stemgent bought the human tissue business of the UKs Asterand Plc. for $9 million in cash.

Read the original post:
Stemgent rakes in $11M, largest round to date