AbOliGo targets $2.3bn market after seed round success and shrewd board hires
The company, based at Babraham Research Campus, has just closed an oversubscribed seed funding round – amount undisclosed – to accelerate multiomic research tools and has appointed a proven Life Sciences board.
The raise attracted strong support from leading early-stage life science investors and will enable AbOliGo to scale manufacturing, expand its team and drive commercial growth, Dr Brian Carpenter – CEO and co-founder – tells Business Weekly.
He says: “This investment enables us to develop and build the infrastructure needed to serve researchers pushing the frontiers of multiomic science. Our mission is to empower scientists by providing fast, reproducible, antibody-oligo conjugates (AOCs) for all.”
AOCs combine antibodies’ exquisite target specificity with the unique properties of oligonucleotides – DNA amplification and molecular barcoding – enabling effectively unlimited multiplexing.
This fusion of decades of RuO antibody development with genomics and transcriptomics capabilities has opened powerful new research possibilities.
Yet the solution is far from straightforward, the Babraham Research Campus company says. Despite the ~7 million commercially available antibodies on the market, only around 0.03 per cent are offered as oligo conjugates, severely limiting researchers’ ability to perform comprehensive proteome analysis.
The opportunity ahead of AbOliGo is substantial. The multiplexing market—driven by spatial biology and single-cell analysis—was valued at $860 million in 2024 ($405m in instruments and $455m in reagent consumables, including AOCs) and is projected to reach $2.3 billion by 2029, representing a 21 per cent CAGR.
Dr Carpenter tells us: “To date, AbOliGo has raised a seven-figure sum through a combination of angel investment and pre-seed funding, reflecting strong investor confidence in the core proposition – delivering high-quality, reproducible AOCs for multiplexed applications. Looking ahead, our strategy focuses on scaling operations, broadening our product portfolio, and deepening commercial traction."
He reveals that the company is specifically targeting North America – “the largest and fastest-growing market for spatial biology and single-cell analysis." But it will also go for growth across Europe – “particularly the UK and Germany, where early adopters are integrating AOCs into workflows - and Asia-Pacific, specifically selected high-growth regions in the territory showing increasing interest in multiplex proteomics."
Academic research in addition to general Biopharma/Biotech markets all offer excellent growth opportunities for the business, Dr Carpenter adds.
To bolster the global growth push, AbOligo has formed a board of accomplished leaders in the life science reagents space. They are led by chairman Nick Hutchings, founder of Absolute Antibody and Everest Biotech - both acquired by LSBio and now part of Vector Laboratories.
Also on board, literally, is Dr Nick Gee, a non-exec director, who was former CEO of Innova Biosciences and inventor of the Lightning-Link conjugation technology (acquired by Expedeon/SYGNIS and now sold by Abcam. Ditto Karen Padgett, also a non-exec director, former founder and CEO at Novus Biologicals (acquired by Bio-Techne) and adviser to numerous biotech ventures.
