Element Gains $277M in Series D Funding for Sequencing Business

With the $277 million it secured in a Series D fundraising round, Element Biosciences stated that it now has enough money to take on Illumina in the sequencing business.

The market leader for short-read sequencing is Illumina. No competitor has effectively contested Illumina in the short-read industry for years, despite the fact that Pacific Biosciences and Oxford Nanopore Technologies have established successful companies in the long-read sector. While long-read DNA sequencing enables the discovery of more complicated structural variations, short-read DNA sequencing allows for most genetic variation.

According to estimates from the UK competition authority, Illumina had between 80% and 90% of the demand for both short as well as long read next-generation sequencing in 2019.

Among the businesses attempting to subvert Illumina’s hegemony is Element. Several years ago, the business made a name for itself as a possible challenger. In 2021, it raised $276 million in a Series C financing and released its Aviti gadget.