Cambridge, United Kingdom
October 31, 2022
- Funds to support scale-up, including continued development of AI-augmented knowledge discovery platform, the e[datascientist]™, and continued international expansion
- Platform business focused on bridging the current ‘translation gap’, addressing critical bottlenecks in the industrial application of microbiome science – from soil, to plant, to farm, to fork, to human, to animals, and environmental health
- Round led by abrdn plc, alongside existing investors, including Environmental Technologies Fund and a consortium led by Granpool Innovative Investments
Eagle Genomics, the pioneering TechBio platform business applying network science1 to biology, today announced the USD 20 million first close of its scale-up funding round. The investment will support further development of the e[datascientist]™ platform2 and will continue to drive expansion into global markets and the deepening of client impact.
The round is being led by abrdn plc, with continued participation from existing investors Environmental Technologies Fund, and a consortium of investors headed by Granpool Innovative Investments. The current funding round will remain open for a further period to enable additional participation up to a further USD 10 million.
Eagle Genomics continues to mature and expand as the leading TechBio company pioneering the application of network science to biological discovery and innovation, across the Food and Nutrition, AgBio, Beauty and Personal Care, and Biopharma industries. The e[datascientist] platform enables enterprise customers to trace digital journeys in data, driving transformative innovations, exploiting leading-edge scientific discovery in silico and supporting differentiated product claims.
Eagle Genomics’ purpose is to accelerate the Bioeconomy through the digital reinvention of life sciences R&D, and the Company is increasingly focused on supporting its customers' aspirations as they address ‘One Health’ challenges towards more sustainable and impact-oriented innovation and product outcomes. The concept of ‘One Health’ recognises that the health of humans, animals, and the environment are intimately interconnected, and that the application of technologies to solve in one domain can inspire and enable advances in others. Addressing the ‘One Health’ opportunity requires a focus on, and a deep understanding of, microbiome3 and host-microbiome interactions as the common denominator across these domains.
Eagle Genomics is the pre-eminent platform business using next-generation graph technology and network science to drive the Bioeconomy. The business problem that the platform solves for its customers is to network their scientific data to support step-change innovation – e.g., understanding new key bio-active ingredients that could deliver health benefits, or targeting a particular health benefit and working backwards through data to identify key ingredients. The technical challenge that Eagle Genomics is solving is to bridge the ‘translation gap,’ so that scientific knowledge from a range of disparate sources and studies across industries can be applied to deliver robust, scientifically underpinned product claims.
Particular innovation journeys that enable differentiated products and product claims include:
Food and Nutrition: Personalised and functional nutrition; e.g., energy balance, feed efficiency, growth rate, botanicals, food as medicine, precision fermentation, alternative proteins and ingredient design and differentiation.
Beauty and Personal Care: Personalised/stratified cosmetics; e.g., skin, oral, scalp, pre/pro/postbiotics, ingredient manufacturing, cosmeceuticals, and genital health/personal hygiene products.
AgBio: Biofertilizers, microbiome engineering, bioavailability, crops (yield increase, protection, fertility, productivity, climate adaptation/change mitigation), soil treatment, and smart agriculture.
BioPharma: Microbiome therapeutics, anti-microbial resistance, personalised/stratified medicine, therapeutics for gastrointestinal and infectious diseases, immuno-oncology/autoimmune disease and metabolic health.
Anthony Finbow, CEO, Eagle Genomics, said:
“We are the pre-eminent platform business using next-generation graph technology and network science to drive the Bioeconomy. We are seeking to support our enterprise customers as they strive to achieve more sustainable and impact-orientated innovation outcomes. The current scale-up funding will enable us to accelerate the Bioeconomy through the digital reinvention of science.”
Alistair Watson, Head of Strategy Innovation - Private Equity, abrdn, stated:
“We believe that Eagle Genomics is poised to support increasing numbers of large enterprise customers with digitising R&D and product innovation activities. This investment will support Eagle Genomics’ scale-up while driving further penetration into global markets. It is also pivotal for the wider Bioeconomy, as the importance of microbiome science increases and its applications become more widespread.”
Rob Genieser, Environmental Technologies Fund, commented:
“We are delighted to see Eagle Genomics continue to mature and scale. The timing could not be better, with the world’s focus on disease and accelerated in silico innovation. At a time when there is an urgent requirement for systems change to support and protect the Biosphere, Eagle Genomics is helping drive sustainability and impact-focused business outcomes. We wish the team all the best in expanding its reach and deepening its capabilities.”
Notes
- Network science is the study of complex networks of physical, biological, and social phenomena, and can also be used to explain and deeply understand these phenomena.
- The e[datascientist]™ is powered by network science and multilayer hypergraphs, applying machine learning and AI to provide a data-driven insight journey into solving complex problems at scale. It integrates active learning at every step of the microbiome innovation journey, from ‘descriptive’ to ‘predictive,’ while identifying mechanisms of action. It has been gaining major traction with large household brands as they strive to demonstrate the link between their latest products, microbiome health, and ‘One Health’ related issues.
- The microbiome, the ecosystem of bacteria, fungi and viruses present in virtually all living organisms, is directly linked with health and is proven to be affected by the products we use and consume.
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