23andMe, Inc. Completes Series A Financing.MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- 23andMe, Inc., a privately held, early-stage personal genetics company today announced it had closed its Series A Preferred Stock Stock shares that have preferential rights to dividends or to amounts distributable on liquidation, or to both, ahead of common shareholders. Preferred stock is given preference over common stock. Holders of preferred stock receive dividends at a fixed annual rate. Financing, which included investments from, among others, Genentech, Inc., Google Inc., MDV- Mohr Davidow Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. Terms of the financing were not disclosed. "Achieving this significant funding milestone enables us to move forward with our core mission of connecting people with their own genetic information," said Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe. "We are thrilled and honored to have attracted the backing of such a diverse, proven and innovative group of investors." 23andMe is focused on empowering individuals to access, explore, and better understand their genetic information, making use of recent advances in DNA analysis DNA analysis Any technique used to analyze genes and DNA. See Chromosome walking, DNA fingerprinting, Footprinting, In situ hybridization, Jeffries' probe, Jumping libraries, PCR, RFLP analysis, Southern blot hybridization. technologies and proprietary web-based software tools. The company currently plans to launch at the end of the year and will provide more information at that time. "Our goal is to allow individuals to gain deeper insights into their ancestry, genealogy genealogy (jē'nēŏl`əjē, –ăl`–, jĕ–), the study of family lineage. Genealogies have existed since ancient times. and inherited traits and, ultimately, the option to work together to advance the overall understanding of the human genome The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is composed of 24 distinct pairs of chromosomes (22 autosomal + X + Y) with a total of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs containing an estimated 20,000–25,000 genes. ," said Anne Wojcicki, co-founder. The company is being advised by a group of renowned experts in the fields of human genetics Human genetics A discipline concerned with genetically determined resemblances and differences among human beings. Technological advances in the visualization of human chromosomes have shown that abnormalities of chromosome number or structure are surprisingly , genomics, bio-ethics and bioinformatics. 23andMe, Inc. was founded by Ms. Avey and Ms. Wojcicki in 2006 and is located in Mountain View, California For the census-designated place, see Mountain View, Contra Costa County, California. For other places called "Mountain View", see . Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city gets its name from the views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. . More information is available at www.23andme.com. |
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