BioForce Nanosciences, an Ames, IA-based nanotechnology firm, has completed a $3.45 million Series A financing.
The money will go toward expanded sales and marketing for the company’s flagship product, the Nano eNabler, a benchtop molecular printer that is capable of “printing” extremely small tests; it allows for the deposition of minute quantities of liquids at defined locations with high spatial accuracy and speed.
The funds also will be used for continued development of BioNano Fusion products, being developed by BioForce’s new emerging technologies division. The division, formed in July, is dedicated to commercializing in-house R&D efforts and enabling collaborations with external partners.
One week after the new division was formed, BioForce received the second half of a $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health. That money is being used to develop BioForce’s Chip-on-a-Tip technology, a nanobiosensor capable of detecting protein biomarkers from just a few cells. Based on the Nano eNabler platform, Chip-on-a-Tip is designed to provide fast analysis of minute protein samples, such as those studied in forensics or biopsy microsamples. The longterm, healthcare goal is to use Chip-on-a-Tip for early detection of cancer and other diseases, with a significant reduction in patient discomfort.
And back in April, BioForce announced that it was looking for financial backing for its ViriChip platform, a patented system, also based on the Nano eNabler technology, designed to detect and identify whole viruses. The firm believes the technology, from which ultraminiaturized biodetection devices could be developed, could have a major impact in biodefense. The ViriChip technology can detect a variety of different pathogens: environmental pathogens, pathogens relevant to biodefense, animal and plant viruses such as Avian flu and West Nile virus, and human disease agents like herpes and SARS.
This latest financing — a fixed-price transaction that involved sales to an institutional investor of Series A 8% convertible preferred stock at $.50 per share and a series of warrants with exercise prices ranging from $.50 to $1.25 per share — was managed by TriPoint Global Equities. Initial proceeds to BioForce were $500,000, with up to $2.95 million of additional proceeds from the exercise of warrants issued as a part of the transaction. $1.825 million of the additional proceeds are subject to warrants that are either callable by BioForce under specified conditions, or expire if not exercised within twelve months.
