Molecular Imaging Closes Series A Financing Round Oversubscribed At $9.9M
ANN ARBOR -- Ann Arbor-based Molecular Imaging Inc. announced Friday that it has closed its Series A financing round, originally targeted for $8.5 million, at $9.9 million.
The company said it secured a $2.5 million investment from Beringea, Michigan's largest venture capital fund, through the $185 million InvestMichigan Growth Capital Fund -- plus another $350,000 from existing shareholders Baird Venture Partners and Invest Detroit. It's the 26th investment for InvestMichigan. Combined with $7.05 million previously provided by BVP, Arcus Ventures and Invest Detroit, Molecular Imaging's Series A round was over-subscribed by nearly $1.5 million.
Molecular Imaging is a specialty contract research organization providing preclinical imaging services in living organisms to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to help identify promising potential drugs and treatments earlier in the research and development process.
Molecular Imaging has a proven track record of imaging and discovery expertise in cancer treatment and inflammation and is extending its imaging efforts into other therapeutic areas.
The company's imaging capabilities include MRI, micro-PET, bioluminescence, fluorescence (two- and three-dimensional with fluorescence molecular tomography) and micro-CT. Molecular Imaging has performed nearly 400 imaging studies since its founding in 2003, supporting the needs of more than 100 customers.
Michael Gross, managing director for Beringea and now a director of Molecular Imaging, said: "We believe that the early application of imaging in drug discovery can make a significant difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of a company's R&D investment. The growing use of multi-modality imaging is enhancing anatomical and functional assessments of diseases and treatments and is a very powerful tool in helping select compounds or biologics with the greatest clinical potential. We look forward to Molecular Imaging leading the way in this important area."
Tom Ludlam, president and CEO of Molecular Imaging, welcomed "Beringea as part of the Molecular Imaging team, With their investment, we look forward to further advancing our efforts to grow and diversify both the imaging modalities and the range of disease models we offer to our customers. Our recent agreement with Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which gave us access to a broad line of luciferase-enabled cell lines, is just one example of the kinds of opportunities this investment from Beringea affords us the opportunity to pursue."
More at www.molecularimaging.com and www.beringea.com.
