Illumina
Surveying great inventors and businesses
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Axial partners with great founders and inventors. We invest in early-stage life sciences companies such as Appia Bio, Seranova Bio, Delix Therapeutics, Simcha Therapeutics, among others often when they are no more than an idea. We are fanatical about helping the rare inventor who is compelled to build their own enduring business. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company . We are excited to be in business with you - email us at info@axialvc.com
Illumina enabled the genomics revolution. Founded in 1998 by David Walt, Larry Bock, John Stuelpnagel, Anthony Czarnik, & Mark Chee, their 1st product was a SNP genotyping service in 2001 then launching their microarray BeadLab instrument in 2002.
The key moment in the company’s history was their acquisition of Solexa in 2007. Giving Illumina the core technology to introduce a genome sequencing service in 2009 (30x converge for $48K per genome), then instruments, & setting them up to win the sequencing wars of the 2010s.
By 2011, Illumina reduced this price to ~$4K. By 2014, Illumina held ~70% market share and reduced the price of a genome to $1K. Introducing a range of products from MiniSeq to NovaSeq, selling 100s of instruments per year, & powering new discoveries/products.
Illumina’s razor-and-blade business model has made it difficult for new sequencing products to gain traction, but with expiring patents, Illumina is working to move upstream to applications with the acquisition of GRAIL. Learn more about Illumina here: https://www.illumina.com/