Lumora raises £700,000 to accelerate commercial development

Portfolio company Lumora, a provider of state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic products for the clinical and industrial market, has completed a follow on fund raising as it looks to progress its molecular diagnostics applications in the US and Europe.

Lumora has raised £700,000 from current investors including Tate & Lyle Ventures, Catapult Venture Managers and Cambridge University.  The funding will be used to further commercialise Lumora's molecular diagnostic technologies and applications including the BART system (Bioluminescent Assay in Real Time), along with Lumora's other proprietary technologies.

Laurence Tisi, CEO of Lumora, said "This funding is excellent news and demonstrates the support that the business has from its investors and shareholders, particularly in this challenging economic climate.  During this quarter we have made significant progress with a number of commercial deals and the funding will allow us to further develop new products, take advantage of new opportunities, and accelerate existing commercial agreements."

David Atkinson, Managing Partner, Tate & Lyle Ventures, stated "We are delighted to continue to support Lumora given the technical milestones it has achieved, and look forward to further commercial success in the coming months."

The fundraising builds on a busy start to 2013 for Lumora, with the appointments of Jim Reid as Chairman and Hayden Jeffreys as Commercial Director.  At the same time, the company is developing a number of significant commercial deals in the clinical, industrial and veterinary sectors.

Hayden Jeffreys, Commercial Director at Lumora added "We are pleased with the strong commercial progress we are making and expect a number of important announcements over the coming months.  As well as announcing the first of our clinical development agreements from our pipeline, we also expect to announce our next industrial licensing deal in the veterinary field."