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Ocimum Biosolutions, Hyderabad-based genomics outsourcing company, has raised $17 million from Kubera Cross-Border Fund Ltd, an India-focused investment company traded on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. This is the second round of fund raising for Ocimum. Investment bank o3 Capital Partners has advised Ocimum in the deal. In November last year, the company had raised $6.5 million from International Finance Corp.
The current fund raising is largely to fund its recent acquisition of US-based Gene Logic's genomic business. The $10-million purchase includes Gene Logic’s knowledge products business. They include the genomic database (BioExpress) and other programmes like ToxExpress, Genesis software system and web-enabled products like Ascenta, Sciantis and ToxShield. This division has revenues of $15 million. Ocimum has in the past bought MWG Biotech’s (Germany) microarray business and Isogen’s (Netherlands) oligonucleotide business.
Ocimum is essentially in a life sciences R&D play with a focus on BioIT, microarrays, and contract research services. Its US operations are focused on custom contract research services in the molecular biology area, while the Indian operations provide BioIT services. It operates from three locations: Indianapolis (United States), Ijsselstien (Netherlands), and Hyderabad (India).
Ramanan Raghavendran, Managing Partner at Kubera Partners said, “We believe genomics outsourcing is at the cusp of significant growth given the demands on the drug discovery function for labs around the world. Ocimum is well positioned to capture this opportunity." This is the fourth investment of Kubera. It recently announced $20 million investment in Venture Infotek Ltd, the Mauritius-based parent of Indian firm Venture Infotek Global Pvt Ltd which offers transaction processing services catering to banking, financial services, petroleum, retail, and telecommunications sector.
It had earlier invested in Adayana Inc, an e-learning services company with offshore development operations in Hyderabad, and Kejriwal Stationery, which exports stationery products to the US, and Europe.
The fund, founded by Kumar Mahadev and Ramanan Raghavendran will make an investment in the range of $20 million and $40 million in companies that have a cross border angle. The fund, which had first raised about $225 million for investment in Indian companies with a cross-border angle (export-oriented), plans to raise another $225 million from AIM soon.

Related:
IFC Invests $6.5 Million In Ocimum Biosolutions; To Do European Buyouts