Eagle Genomics’ Scale-Up Funding from OMRON Ventures to Drive Sustainability Innovation in Microbiome R&D

• OMRON Ventures joins existing investors abrdn, Environmental Technologies Fund and consortium led by Granpool Innovative Investments 
• Scale-up focused on enabling novel, sustainable scientific innovations that harness the microbiome to solve for ‘One Health’ challenges, through development of AI-augmented knowledge discovery platform, e[datascientist]™ 

CAMBRIDGE, UK – 16 January 2023 – Today, Eagle Genomics, the pioneering TechBio platform business applying network science¹ to biology, disclosed additional scale-up funding from Japan-based corporate venture capital firm OMRON VENTURES Co., LTD. The funds will support the ongoing development of Eagle Genomics’ e[datascientist]™² platform as well as continued global expansion and increased client impact. The e[datascientist]™ uses multilayer hypergraphs to structure and interrogate data, applying AI to network science to derive data-driven insight journeys into complex problems at scale. The current funding round is ongoing, and open for additional investment opportunities. 

Eagle Genomics continues to mature and expand as the leading TechBio company pioneering the application of network science to biological discovery and innovation, across the Food and Nutrition, AgBio, Beauty and Personal Care, and Biopharma industries. The e[datascientist]™ platform enables enterprise customers to trace digital journeys in data, drive transformative innovations, exploit leading-edge scientific discovery in silico and support differentiated product claims. By networking scientific data to support step-change innovation, Eagle Genomics is bridging the ‘translation gap,’ using scientific knowledge from a range of disparate sources and studies across industries to deliver robust, scientifically underpinned product claims³.  

The company’s partners include household names like Unilever, where research on the skin and oral microbiome, powered by Eagle Genomics’ platform resulted in the development of products and claims relating to the improvement and maintenance of skin and oral health, such as Zendium toothpaste and Dove soap. 

As such, Eagle Genomics values supporting its customers aspirations as they address the ‘One Health’⁴ challenges towards more sustainable and impact-oriented innovation. A knowledge of the microbiome, and host-microbiome interactions across human, animal and environmental health domains is critical to unlocking radical innovation opportunities that can solve these challenges. This is where the e[datascientist]’s capabilities to efficiently interrogate multi-dimensional microbiome and other biological data plays an invaluable role. 

Anthony Finbow, CEO, Eagle Genomics, said: “We are the pre-eminent platform business using next-generation graph technology and network science to drive the Bioeconomy. We support our enterprise customers to achieve more sustainable and impact-orientated innovation outcomes by harnessing the knowledge of the microbiome. This is especially important in areas of unmet clinical need, such as metabolic health and cardiovascular health, where the microbiome’s effect is becoming increasingly more prevalent and critical. The current scale-up funding from OMRON Ventures will further our transformational impact across the One Health domains.”  

Tomoko Inoue, CEO, OMRON VENTURES Co., LTD., said: “In today’s society, which is overflowing with data, OMRON Ventures strives to create new value by leveraging data as an asset. Eagle Genomics and its e[datascientist] platform enables innovation journeys that can yield differentiated products, product claims, and asset repurposing. Its focus on influencing systems-change and data-driven innovation to accelerate the Bioeconomy aligns closely with our principles for social and economic change. We are therefore very pleased to be making our current investment in Eagle Genomics and wish it all the best on its upwards trajectory.”

In October 2022, Eagle Genomics announced a USD $20 million first close of its scale-up funding round. The round was led by abrdn plc, with continued participation from existing investors Environmental Technologies Fund, and a consortium of investors headed by Granpool Innovative Investments. 

Notes

1. Network science is the study of complex networks of physical, biological, and social phenomena, and can also be used to explain and deeply understand these phenomena. 

2. The e[datascientist]™ is powered by network science and multilayer hypergraphs, applying machine learning and AI to provide a data-driven insight journey into solving complex problems at scale. It integrates active learning at every step of the microbiome innovation journey, from ‘descriptive’ to ‘predictive,’ while identifying mechanisms of action. It has been gaining major traction with large household brands as they strive to demonstrate the link between their latest products, microbiome health, and ‘One Health’ related issues.  

3. Innovation journeys that enable differentiated products and product claims include:

Food and Nutrition: Personalised and functional nutrition, e.g., energy balance, feed efficiency, growth rate, botanicals, food as medicine, precision fermentation, alternative proteins and ingredient design and differentiation.

Beauty and Personal Care: Personalised/stratified cosmetics, e.g., skin, oral, scalp, pre/pro/postbiotics, ingredient manufacturing, cosmeceuticals, and genital health/personal hygiene products. 

AgBio: Biofertilizers, microbiome engineering, bioavailability, crops (yield increase, protection, fertility, productivity, climate adaptation/change mitigation), soil treatment, and smart agriculture. 

BioPharma: Microbiome therapeutics, anti-microbial resistance solutions, personalised/stratified medicine, therapeutics for gastrointestinal and infectious diseases, immuno-oncology/autoimmune disease, and metabolic health.

4. One Health recognises that the health of humans, animals, and the environment are intimately interconnected and that applying technologies to solve in one domain can inspire and enable advances in others.