VC Deals Only: Real estate platform Compass raises another $370M ...

VC Deals Only: Real estate platform Compass raises another $370M ...: The real estate market regularly goes through ups and downs, but today comes big news for a startup in the space that has built a platfo...

Real estate platform Compass raises another $370M on a $6.4B valuation en route to an IPO

The real estate market regularly goes through ups and downs, but today comes big news for a startup in the space that has built a platform that it believes can help all players in it — buyers, sellers and those who help with the buying and selling — no matter what stage of the cycle we happen to be in.

Compass — a company that has built a three-sided marketplace for the industry, along with a wide set of algorithms to help make it work — has raised a $370 million round of funding, money that it plans to use to continue expanding geographically (within existing markets in the U.S. such as New York, Connecticut.

Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, SF and LA and other areas), as well as for more tech and product development. Sources tell me that it’s also now eyeing up an IPO, likely sometime in the next 24 months.

“From day one we knew, when we had just a small amount of people at the company, we had a very clear focus,” co-founder and chairman Ori Allon said in an interview. “We wanted to bring more tech and data and transparency to real estate, and I think it’s paid off.”

Based out of New York, Compass earlier this year established an engineering hub in Seattle run by the former CTO of AI for Microsoft, Joseph Sirosh . It’s continuing to hire there and elsewhere (alongside also making acqui-hires for talent).

The Series G funding — which brings the total raised by Compass to $1.5 billion — is coming in at a $6.4 billion valuation, a huge uptick for the company compared to its $4.4 billion valuation less than a year ago. Part of the reason for that has been the company’s massive growth: in the last quarter, its revenues were up 250% compared to Q2 2018.

The investor list for this latest round includes previous investors Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Dragoneer Investment Group and SoftBank Vision Fund. Other backers since it was first founded in 2012 have included Founders Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (a construction and real estate giant), Fidelity and others.

The company was co-founded by Ori Allon and Robert Reffkin — respectively the chairman and CEO, pictured here on the right and left of COO Maelle Gavet. The company first caught my eye because of Allon. An engineer by training, he has a string of notable prior successes in the field of search to his name (his two previous startups were sold to Google and Twitter, which used them as the basis of large areas of their search and discovery algorithms).

In this latest entrepreneurial foray, Allon’s vision of using machine learning algorithms to improve decisions that humans make has been tailored to the specific vertical of real estate.

The platform is not a mere marketplace to connect buyers to real estate agents to sellers, but an engine that helps figure out pricing, timing for sales and how to stage homes (and more recently how to improve them with actual building work by way of Compass Concierge) to get the best prices and best sales.

It also helps real estate agents — it currently works with some 13,000 of them — manage their time and their customers (by way of an acquisition it made of CRM platform Contactually earlier this year). Starting with high-end homes for private individuals, Compass has expanded to commercial real estate and a much wider set of price brackets. Its traction in the market among its three customer bases of realtors, buyers and sellers has also meant that it’s been the subject of around 10 lawsuits from the likes of Zillow (over IP theft from former employees) and Realology (which owns firms like Coldwell Banker and Century21).

There is a wide opportunity for vertical search businesses at the moment. People want more accurate and targeted information to make purchasing decisions; and companies that are in the business of providing information (and selling things) are keen for better platforms to bring in online visitors and increase their conversions.

I understand that this has led to Compass getting approached for acquisitions, but that is not in the blueprint for this real estate startup: the longer-term plan will be to take the company public, likely in the next 24 months.

“It has been incredible to see the growth of our Product & Engineering team, including the addition of Joseph Sirosh as CTO,” said Allon, in a statement. “We are excited to partner with new investors, and deepen our relationship with our existing partners to accelerate our growth and further our technology advancements.”

Source. TechCrunch News, Ingrid Lunden, July 31, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Just Eat and Takeaway.com merger designed to ward ...

VC Deals Only: Just Eat and Takeaway.com merger designed to ward ...: When Alex Canter, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and the fourth-generation proprietor of Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles, took ov...

Just Eat and Takeaway.com merger designed to ward off younger rivals such as Uber Eats

When Alex Canter, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and the fourth-generation proprietor of Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles, took over business development operations at his great-grandfather’s restaurant, he quickly became frustrated by the complexity involved in routing orders from multiple food delivery platforms. Fortunately, he met entrepreneur Mike Jacobs, who’d launched a product targeting order fulfillment for stadium concession stands and food trucks. The two cofounders, along with four others, fine-tuned a solution with partners that included Kitchen United and Epson, and in under a year their product and company — Ordermark — graduated from Boulder, Colorado-based accelerator Techstars and grew to more than 25 employees.

Now, months after moving its headquarters to a 7,200-square-foot office in Culver City (while keeping a Denver office), Ordermark is gearing up for growth with a fresh capital infusion. The startup today revealed that it recently closed an $18 million series B funding round led by Foundry Group, with participation from previous investors TenOneTen Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Mucker Capital, Act One Ventures, and Nosara Capital. The raise comes after a $9.5 million series A in September 2018 and brings Ordermark’s total raised to over $30 million.

CEO Canter says the funding will fuel the integration of Ordermark’s service with existing restaurant technologies, including point of sale (POS) systems, kitchen display systems, accounting tools, last-mile delivery companies, and more. Additionally, he expects it will lay the groundwork for support of emerging restaurant models, like virtual restaurants.

“I cofounded Ordermark to help my family’s restaurant adapt and thrive in the mobile delivery era and then realized that, as a company, we could help other restaurants experiencing the same challenges. We’ve been gratified to see positive results come in from our restaurant customers nationwide,” said Canter. “So we are thrilled to have the backing of Foundry Group to fuel our growth. We have some incredibly cool innovations in the pipeline and look forward to bringing them to restaurants everywhere.”

For each client, Ordermark develops a strategy and creates a bespoke rollout plan, identifying services to bring on, negotiating rates, setting up marketing strategies, and even designating delivery driver pickup zones. The company supplies ordering hardware in the form of a touchscreen Samsung tablet and custom-designed Epson printer, along with software that integrates well over a dozen delivery providers, including Uber Eats, Postmates, DoorDash, ChowNow, Caviar, Delivery.com, and popular POS systems like Brink, Dinerware, Positouch, Simphony, and Squirrel.

Hardware is an important piece of Ordermark’s approach, according to Canter. Prior to onboarding, its restaurant customers are often stuck juggling multiple tablets and laptops to field incoming delivery orders. A multitude of printers and disparate checkout workflows exacerbates the problem, particularly at peak times.

The other key to Ordermark’s solution is a dashboard from which restaurant employees can manage multiple platforms (even for restaurants that provide their own delivery drivers) and from which they can reach out directly to a U.S.-based customer care team to change hours, update menus, or even temporarily pause service. This dashboard also affords them access to analytics tools that surface real-time locations and metrics and run reports across all delivery services.

Ordermark’s success has been nothing short of meteoric, with over 3,000 restaurant brands signed on to date including Buffalo Wild Wings, Little Caesars, Sonic, Qdoba, Johnny Rockets, Subway, Popeyes, Papa John’s, Which Which, Moe’s, Togo’s, Pinkberry, Pieology, TGI Fridays, Yogurtland, and Halal Guys. Deployments rose from 20 U.S. states in September 2018 to over 40 today, and Ordermark expects to have customers in all 50 states within months.

Ordermark competes to an extent with Chowly, which similarly integrates third-party ordering platforms with POS systems, and Checkmate, whose tech suite funnels orders directly into restaurants’ POS systems. But Foundry Group partner Chris Moody believes the food delivery market’s current trajectory — from $17 billion in revenue this year to more than $24 billion in 2023, according to Statista — promises great things for Ordermark.

“Foundry Group has a long history of investing in companies that glue together disparate systems over diverse platforms — and that’s exactly what Ordermark is doing in the restaurant industry: connecting third-party ordering solutions, point-of-sale systems, and other cool innovations to help restaurants consolidate, grow, and understand their delivery business,” said Moody. “We were initially introduced to Ordermark via three of our partner funds: Techstars Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, and TenOneTen Ventures. All three were incredibly excited about what the Ordermark team is building and the tremendous progress they’ve made since their series A investment. The more we got to know Alex and the team, the more we realized what an incredible platform they’re building. Their products work in part because Alex is a fourth-generation restaurant owner and he and his team truly understand the needs of the restaurant."

Source. Venture Beat, Paul Sawers, July 29, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Gusto Raises $200M Series D At $3.8B Valuation To ...

VC Deals Only: Gusto Raises $200M Series D At $3.8B Valuation To ...: SaaS company Gusto announced this morning it has raised a $200 million Series D that values the company at $3.8 billion post-money – nea...

Gusto Raises $200M Series D At $3.8B Valuation To Power HR Within Small Businesses

SaaS company Gusto announced this morning it has raised a $200 million Series D that values the company at $3.8 billion post-money – nearly double what it was valued at when it raised its $140 million Series C one year ago.

New investors include Fidelity Management & Research Co. and also Generation Investment Management, which is Al Gore’s UK-based firm that is focused on sustainable investing. Existing investors T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., Dragoneer Investment Group, and General Catalyst, also participated in the round. With this latest financing, Gusto has now raised more than $516 million since it was founded in 2012.

Gusto’s self-described “people platform” addresses a number of HR-related functions including providing services around payroll, employee onboarding, time tracking, retirement, and increasingly, health insurance. It also offers team management tools.

The San Francisco-based Y-Combinator backed company plans to use the money in part to double its headcount in its Denver office, grow its team in the Bay Area and open up a new R&D office in New York. Currently, Gusto has over 1,000 employees with its four-year-old Denver office being its largest with a staff of over 600, according to CEO and co-founder Josh Reeves. The growth in the number of its employees has been in the 50 percent range most years, he added.

“We’re excited about being in NY, and that’s all about accessing more technical talent, particularly in the financial services area, but also in general in the city’s growing tech ecosystem,” Reeves told Crunchbase News.

Gusto also plans to use its new capital to “double down on research and development” of its platform. Looking ahead, the company plans to invest more in its fintech and healthcare offerings. Its overarching goal is to help smaller companies have the same ability to provide “robust benefits” as larger companies do.

“A big area of investment for us is flexible pay, and helping individuals in how they approach finances,” Reeves said. “It’s also really important to us to help small businesses give their employees easier access to healthcare. Overall, we want to be a force for universal healthcare.”

Indeed, that was a key factor for Generation.

Gusto has “made health coverage available to many who would otherwise not have access to it,” said Shalini Rao, director in growth equity at Generation, in a written statement.

As part of the funding, Gusto also announced its first independent board member in Anne Raimondi, who also currently serves on the board of Asana, a work management platform. She also was SVP of operations at Zendesk as it worked its way to an IPO.

The addition of Raimondi led me to ask Reeves if Gusto was also looking to enter the public arena. “Being a public company is not a matter of if, but when,” he told Crunchbase News. “We’re weighing the pros and cons and I’m confident the pros will outweigh the cons.”

Gusto also recently announced a batch of new hires including former Google chief diversity + inclusion officer Danielle Brown who joined as chief people officer. Also,

former Square CISO (Chief Information and Security Officer) Fredrick Leerecently came on board as Gusto’s new CISO.

Earlier this year, the company passed its 100,000 customer mark. Customers are in a range of industries including bakeries, flower shops, cafes, churches and hotels. Gusto makes its money by charging a monthly subscription fee. It earns more revenue as a company grows or uses more of its services, said Reeves.

All of Gusto’s customers are in the U.S. but it’s looking to expand internationally over time, according to Reeves.

“For now, we’re very focused on the domestic audience,” he said.

“There are six million employers in the U.S. and 98 percent are in the 1-100 employee range. So there’s millions of more businesses to try and go help. There’s still a huge opportunity there.”

Source. Crunchbase News, Mary Ann Azevedo, July 24, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Tile Raises $45M To Help The Modern World Find Its...

VC Deals Only: Tile Raises $45M To Help The Modern World Find Its...: This morning,  Tile  announced it has raised $45 million in a Series C led by  Francisco Partners , a San Francisco-based technology-focus...

Tile Raises $45M To Help The Modern World Find Its Darn Phone

This morning, Tile announced it has raised $45 million in a Series C led by Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based technology-focused private equity fund.

Existing investors GGV Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in the round, as well as new backers Bryant Stibel and SVB Financial Group.

Tile is perhaps best known for its small dongle, which users can attach to their goods which help them later locate the item. (This is especially cool if you’re one of those people who are always losing your keys). The company also provides an application that allows users to see where their items are.

The company’s product lineup is changing over time. Tile noted in its release that it is working with partners (headphone shops, and chip companies) to embed its tech into their goods. Such partnerships could grant Tile a far larger install base, and thus a larger potential userbase; revenue, a lagging indicator, follows usage in most cases. So, the partnerships are bullish.

Its new investors seem to think so. Andrew Kowal, a partner with Francisco Partners, believes Tile’s ability to provide “an embedded finding solution” made it a particularly attractive investment.

The company has now raised $104 million during its life as a private company. The company raised its Series A in late 2014, led by GGV Capital. Tile’s Series B, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, was put together in two parts. The first $18 million landed in 2016, and the second Series B tranche of $25 million came in 2017.

In 2016, when Tile expanded its Series B, the company announced two key milestones. As TechCrunch reported, the firm reached “$100 million in revenue in 2016, and 10 million total units sold.” Given the age of that datapoint, and the new funding that Tile was able to raise, we can presume the firm has grown since. (You can check out some of its app ranking here, which is always a good thing to do.)

In a press release, Tile said it plans to use the new capital “to grow more aggressively internationally, expand into new product categories, and enhance its Premium service.” So far this year, the company said it saw improved results in Europe. We’ve reached out to find out more details about the raise and we’ll update this post once we get them.

The company was said to be worth around $165 million, after raising its $25 million Series B tranche.

Source. Crunchbase News, Alex Wilhelm, Ann Azevedo, July 24, 2019


                                                                                                   ***

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VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only: Weekend Edition: As Didi Raises $60...

VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only: Weekend Edition: As Didi Raises $60...: VC Deals Business travel SaaS startup,  TravelPerk , has announced it’s more than doubled the  $44M Series C round  — taking in a furt...

VC Deals Only: Weekend Edition: As Didi Raises $600M From Toyota, A Reminder Of Its Epic Fundraising History

VC Deals

Business travel SaaS startup, TravelPerk, has announced it’s more than doubled the $44M Series C round — taking in a further $60M from its existing investors, which brings the round to $104M, and the business’ total raised to date to $134M. Investors increasing the size of their Series C commitment are Kinnevik, partners of DST Global, Target Global, Felix Capital, Sunstone, and LocalGlobe. More

Rival Technologies, a voice, video, and chat marketing solution based in Vancouver, has raised $8.5 million CAD, claiming to have doubled its venture capital funding target. The startup said funds from the investment will be used to continue developing the company’s platform and expanding Reach3 Insights, Rival’s sister company, under the umbrella of the Reid Campbell Group.  More

Promethera Biosciences has raised €39.7 million ($44.4 million) to put its liver disease cell therapy through clinical trials. The series D round comes as Promethera prepares to start testing its lead drug in end-stage NASH patients.  More

TurnKey Vacation Rentals, Inc., an Austin, Texas-based vacation rental management company for luxury and premium properties, secured $48m in funding. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate market expansion and develop new vacation rental offerings and technologies for individual owners and small property managers.  More

Unless you were some hotshot finance person in the 1980s, you probably only recently started using your mobile phone to place trades. Today your broker is probably an API which wears a user interface to work in a mobile app to do your bidding.  Robinhood makes one of these apps. Based in San Francisco, the company is among the leading contenders looking to unseat established online brokerages by offering commission fee-free trading, asset classes including options and cryptocurrencies, and other features largely aimed at new investors.  More

Investors have poured boatloads of cash into liquid biopsy companies promising that their technology is the solution for non-invasive screening of early-stage cancer. In the latest mega funding round, South San Francisco company Freenome has raised a $160 million in a Series B led by RA Capital Management and Polaris Partners to launch its pivotal trial for its blood-based test to screen for colorectal cancer. Polaris Partners and RA Capital will join Freenome’s board as part of the deal. More

Didi, the China-based ride-hailing giant, has raised fresh capital from a corporate investor. The $600 million investment from Toyota further pads Didi’s coffers as some of its global rivals are flush with IPO-related proceeds; Uber and Lyft, key ride-hailing players, raised billions each in their 2019 IPOs. More

HipCamp, a San Francisco, CA-based online marketplace for campsites, raised $25m in Series B funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund with participation from return backers Benchmark Capital, August Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and new investor Yes VC. More

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Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience. 

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, and Halifax.  

New Funds

European life sciences investment firm has closed its latest fund, worth nearly half of $1 billion. Medicxi said Friday that it had closed the fund, Medicxi III, with a value of 400 million euros, or about $449 million. The firm has locations in London, Geneva and Jersey, and the new fund’s investors include U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC and Swiss drugmaker Novartis, along with previous limited investors in Medicxi funds and new investors.  More

Flare Capital Partners, a Boston, MA-based healthcare technology venture capital firm, closed its second fund, at $255m. Flare Capital Partners II, L.P., will continue to follow the firm’s focus on transformational technologies and services that enable value-based healthcare, leveraging mobile solutions, big data analytics technologies, and secure infrastructure.  More

Partnerships

On Monday, Microsoft announced an “exclusive computing partnership” and a $1 billion “investment” into OpenAI, the non-profit artificial intelligence research company co-founded by Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and former Y Combinator president Sam Altman, who now serves as the organization’s CEO. More

Indianapolis-based insurer Anthem has tapped primary care startup K Health to launch a new co-branded app to help Anthem members determine potential diagnosis and text with doctors for medical advice. As part of the collaboration, Anthem is making a major multi-million dollar investment in the New York-based company, bringing its total funding to more than $50 million. More

Acquisitions

Continental, a Michigan-based food management company, acquired Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Northern Vending Company. As part of the acquisition, the entire Northern Vending staff will join the Continental team. According to Steve LaPorte, president of Continental’s refreshment services group, Northern Vending expands Continental’s client base with a solid roster of loyal, long-term customers. More

Legal News

Equifax will pay at least $575 million in a settlement for a mammoth 2017 data breach that impacted more than 140 million people. According to an announcement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), this penalty could rise to as much as $700 million. The Atlanta-headquartered consumer credit reporting company hit the spotlight back in September 2017, when it announced that personal details— such as the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, and more — of up to 147 million U.S. consumers were exposed to hackers between May and July of that year. More

Fund News

SoftBank’s second Vision Fund is coming into sharper focus as we learn that Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and SoftBank are possible investors. After indicating that the Vision Fund could be only the first of similar capital vehicles, it seems that SoftBank’s dream of having more than one enormous investment fund is inching closer to reality.  More

VC Deals Only: HipCamp Secures $25M in Series B Funding

VC Deals Only: HipCamp Secures $25M in Series B Funding: HipCamp , a San Francisco, CA-based online marketplace for campsites, raised $25m in Series B funding. The round was led by Andreessen ...

HipCamp Secures $25M in Series B Funding

HipCamp, a San Francisco, CA-based online marketplace for campsites, raised $25m in Series B funding.

The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund with participation from return backers Benchmark Capital, August Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and new investor Yes VC.

The company, which has raised $40.5m in total funding to date, intends to use the capital to expand its marketplace.

Led by CEO Alyssa Ravasio, HipCamp enables vehicle owners and campers to discover experiences on ranches, nature preserves, farms, vineyards, and public campgrounds across the U.S. and book tent camping, treehouses, cabins, yurts, primitive backcountry sites, car camping, airstreams, tiny houses, RV camping, glamping tents and more.

Source. FinSMEs, Staff, July 25, 2019

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Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

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VC Deals Only: Freenome nabs $160M to advance blood-based colorec...

VC Deals Only: Freenome nabs $160M to advance blood-based colorec...: Investors have poured boatloads of cash into liquid biopsy companies promising that their technology is the solution for non-invasive scree...

Freenome nabs $160M to advance blood-based colorectal cancer test

Investors have poured boatloads of cash into liquid biopsy companies promising that their technology is the solution for non-invasive screening of early-stage cancer.

In the latest mega funding round, South San Francisco company Freenome has raised a $160 million in a Series B led by RA Capital Management and Polaris Partners to launch its pivotal trial for its blood-based test to screen for colorectal cancer. Polaris Partners and RA Capital will join Freenome’s board as part of the deal.

Other new investors in the round include Roche Venture Fund, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and the social impact investing arm of the American Cancer Society. The company has raised a total of $238 million since its founding in 2014.

Alongside the company’s clinical validation efforts, Freenome expects to submit its test for parallel review for CMS coverage. The new capital will be directed at building the infrastructure and staffing necessary to perform the clinical trial.

Freenome’s technology analyzes patient sample taken through regular blood draw to determine the potential risk for colorectal cancer.

Through what the company dubs a “multiomics” approach, the diagnostic uses machine learning and computation to test a combination of potential biomarkers for cancer like genetic material shed from cancer cells, relevant proteins

and methylation, which is a process by which DNA modifies the function of specific genes.

"We’ve never believed there is a single solution to cancer screenings,” said Freenome CEO Gabriel Otte. “Our intention always to test for multiple analytes in the blood and use those combination of signals to effect cancer treatments.”

This information gleaned from Freenome’s test can be used to help inform provider decisions to confirm the diagnosis and start treatment earlier, leading to better recovery and survival rates.

According to the American Cancer Society, when colorectal cancer is detected in an early stage, 5-year survival rates hover around 90 percent. The condition is the second deadliest form of cancer, with around 50,000 Americans predicted to die of the condition this year.

Freenome’s strategy takes a page from Exact Sciences, which received FDA approval – along with a positive CMS coverage indication – for its Cologuard stool-based colorectal cancer diagnostic in 2014.

Frankly it’s not really about what works technologically, and not even what you can get validated by the FDA, but rather what you can get paid for,” Otte said.

Mirroring its predecessor’s approach to regulatory and reimbursement approval, Freenome is also looking to launch a similar trial to the one conducted by Exact Sciences.

Otte said Freenome plans to have pre-submission meetings with the FDA later this year and launch the clinical trial in the first half of 2020. The hope is to be able to enroll roughly 10,000 participants into the trial, with the research taking place over a period of around 24 months.

Competitors like Grail, Guardant Health and Thrive are all pursuing their own liquid biopsy technology, albeit with a focus on screening for multiple types of cancer.

Menlo Park-based Grail presented early results at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting that showed its diagnostic’s ability to detect cancer signals with a false positive rate of less than 1 percent and find the tissue of origin with relatively high accuracy.

Otte, however, drew a distinction in the business rationale between Grail’s approach and that of Freenome.

He said that Freenome’s early screening for colorectal cancer has defined clinical utility, with a standard way to confirm to diagnosis through a colonoscopy. Multi-cancer screenings – while great tools technologically – leave too much open to interpretation and are harder to integrate into the existing healthcare system, Otte argued.

“One of the most important questions to ask is what is the clinical follow-up?Clinicians are going never to use the test that leaves too many open-ended questions on what they’re going to do next and payers won’t reimburse for that either,” Otte said.

In fact, Freenome’s company’s own product development pipeline was shaped by a similar realization. Initially, the company’s research honed in on prostate cancer, but it was faced with the issue of early diagnosis failing to change treatment patterns, rendering the test non-commercially viable.

Still, even with the difference in opinion to some of the other liquid biopsy companies, Otte pointed to the growing interest in the field from investors and clinicians as positive indications for the industry.

“Diagnostics have traditionally been the ugly-step sibling in the therapeutics world, but there’s a growing recognition that next-generation diagnostics are here to stay and are a key part of solving cancer,” Otte said.

Source. Medcity News, Kevin Truong, July 24, 2019

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