Japan-headquartered Atonarp has raised $50 million from a Series D funding round led by Silicon Valley-based investor WRVI Capital and supported by Furukawa Electric, Japan Post Investment, Boscolo Intervest, ATI Korea, and Banner Industries. This brings a total of $111 million in investments for the company.

WHAT IT DOES

Founded in 2010, Atonarp produces digital molecular diagnostic solutions for various industries, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, industrial process control and life sciences. Its products run on proprietary spectroscopic technology to detect, analyse, and quantify molecular information.

According to a press release, unlike conventional diagnostic testing methods, the company utilises its own laser-based sensing and profiling technology to analyse small biological samples and produce a digital molecular snapshot "without any use of chemistry or expensive reagents".

The company is presently working to develop an in-vivo diagnostics platform. Slated for a 2022 release, the non-contact optical diagnostic platform can quantify analytes or substance in biofluids.

WHY IT MATTERS

Atonarp said the new funds will be used to expand its operations "to meet growing customer demand in its current markets". Besides Japan, the company also operates in India and the US. It will also use the monies to expedite the development and commercialisation of its molecular diagnostic products.

According to Dr Phyllis Gardner, a professor of Standford University, point-of-care testing is being hampered by "costly" chemistry-driven panels that require large sample volumes and centrally based laboratories for processing.

She noted that Atonarp's molecular sensors, which scan and store an entire digital dataset from incredibly small sample amounts, "can support distributed point-of-care diagnostics, which is critical to achieving predictive and proactive healthcare practices".

Atonarp has also appointed Shaun Holt as its chief operating officer. Holt previously worked as the chief financial officer for US-based Berkeley Lights, where he led the digital cell biology company through its $205 million initial public offering in July.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Diagnostic tests have increasingly become available in the market, especially in the US, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among producers, American startup Cue Health has raised the most funding since last year. Just this month, it closed a $235 million private funding round. Lucira, another notable test maker, was the first to be given an emergency use authorisation by the US FDA for its molecular diagnostic self-testing kit for COVID-19.

In April, the University of Oxford and Prenetics signed a deal to further develop the OxLAMPTM technology, a molecular testing technology for infectious diseases.

ON THE RECORD

"As one of Atonarp's first investors, we recognised early on that the company's breakthrough molecular sensor technology could spur innovation across industries. With its seasoned team of technologists, Atonarp will continue to expand its first-in-class, proven, and transformational molecular sensor technology platform to new industries," said Nicholas Brathwaite, founding managing partner of WRVI Capital and board chairman of Atonarp.

"We have developed the industry's smallest, smartest, cloud-connected, plug-and-play molecular diagnostics platform that quantitatively analyse chemical processes in real-time with unprecedented detail, and are poised to broadly deploy our disruptive platform across multiple industries and market segments," said Atonarp founder Prakash Murthy, who also serves as president, CEO and CTO.