Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Fund and ETV Capital (London) Invest €1.1m in Limerick Based, Stokes Bio.
January 2009: Limerick based Stokes Bio Ltd a developer of microfluidic technology to radically advance life science research and
molecular diagnostics has raised an additional €1.1M in an equity and venture debt funding round lead by the Bank
of Ireland Kernel Capital Fund in syndication with ETV Capital, a specialty finance company. The €1.1M raised was
in addition to €1M raised in 2008 through investment by both Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital and Enterprise Ireland.
The combined funding is being used to advance Stokes Bio’s lead instrumentation product, “the MegaCycler”.
Commenting on the investment, Dr Daniel O’ Mahony, Partner and Head of Life Science at Kernel Capital said, “The
Megacycler will be used in the market place by 2010 in genotyping, gene expression profiling through qPCR, and
digital PCR. It will surpass competing technologies on the level of through-put achievable per run, on the cost per
data-point, on ease of use, flexibility, modularity and reliability. We are very pleased with the considerable progress
achieved by the Stokes Bio team over the past 12 months which has resulted in significant interest from a number of
major industry parties and leading research institutions in both Europe and the USA. We at Kernel Capital are
pleased to partner with ETV Capital and appreciate their endorsement of Stokes Bio, in particular given that there
are such adverse conditions in international financial markets.”
David Bateman of ETV Capital said, “We believe that the Stokes Bio team have developed an exceptional platform
technology with the Megacycler being the first of many potential commercial applications. This technology has the
potential to transform biomarker discovery and biomarker validation, leading to new biomarkers for use in biomedical
and clinical research, disease understanding and treatment. ETV Capital is delighted to support innovative and
ambitious Irish technology businesses such as Stokes Bio.””
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About Stokes Bio
Privately held Stokes Bio is a leading developer of microfluidics-based instrumentation which allows for high
through-put nucleic acid analysis. Founded in 2005, Stokes was conceived around pioneering microfluidics work
undertaken at the University of Limerick by both Professor Mark Davies and Dr Tara Dalton. The company was
spun-out from the University of Limerick with funding from the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Venture Capital Fund.
At present the company employs a team of fourteen engineers and scientists based at its offices and laboratories in
downtown Limerick.
Most, and possibly all, infectious diseases, cancers and other diseases can be characterized and, thereby,
diagnosed by DNA analysis. However, this opportunity has remained largely unrealized. Although existing life
science tools have improved the rate at which new discoveries in this area have been made, there remains a great
need for more effective instrumentation to make breakthrough discoveries.
Stokes Bio, a life science tools company, offers these breakthrough products. Stokes Bio’s Megacycler technology
will radically improve and enhance life science research and molecular diagnostics. Discoveries can be made with
an unprecedented level of automated through-put and at a fraction of the cost of competing technologies. Stokes
Bio's products will enable researchers to perform over one million reactions per instrument run. Thus, Stokes Bio's
platforms will offer customers a more effective way to make profound discoveries. It will also transform biomarker
discovery and biomarker validation, leading to new biomarkers for use in the diagnosis and treatment of different
diseases. The Stokes Megacycler will dominate its target market because it is the only product in the market that is
able to validate biomarkers efficiently, effectively and at a low cost per data-point. The Megacycler’s three superior
attributes, through-put, flexibility, and running costs will make Stokes Bio dominant in this market.
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