By Kristy Dorsey
Genetics spin-out Wobble has raised an initial £1.2 million to further development of hardware and software tools that give scientists and clinicians a more detailed picture of underlying biology.
Founded in April of this year, Wobble is headed by chief executive Richard Kuo and currently employs four people. Spun out of the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, the firm specializes in Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) sequencing.
The investment has been led by St Andrews-based investment group Eos and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture fund. It forms the first part of a seed capital funding round that will be worth a total of £2.15m, and is expected to close within the next couple of months.
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“There is a huge global market of scientists and clinicians who would buy our products as part of their sequencing work,” Mr Kuo said. “On top of this, we plan to target a higher-value market by leveraging our existing technologies with the overall aim of being the first global company to build a picture of disease states that are encoded in RNA.”
Former Mercia Asset director Nicola Broughton has been appointed chairman of the business, having been heavily involved in Wobble’s spin-out and the fundraising. That followed the appointment in April of John Duncan, founding director of Alba Equity, to the role of finance director.
Wobble has been supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the university’s commercialisation service, since 2019. Past financial support has included £100,000 from the Scottish Enterprise high-growth spinout programme, plus £300,000 from Innovate UK.
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Wobble marks the first investment by the new Eos EIS Innovation Fund, which put in money alongside members of the Eos syndicate of investors. Eos now has a portfolio of 14 companies across the disease treatment, energy security, food and water security, and sustainable industrial processes sectors.
“Richard is already a globally respected researcher in RNA sequencing, and now has the ability to build a team to commercialise novel approaches that address the big issues and understanding of this exciting field of life science,” Eos managing partner Andrew McNeill said.
“The importance of RNA sequencing and its role in enabling clinicians to understand disease has only just been recognised over the last couple of years. This investment sits at the heart of what Eos works for – backing the very latest and most promising innovations that have the potential to have a positive impact globally.”
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