uBiome began as a consumer gut-health testing company and has expanded its testing to more than 250,000 samples across gut, skin and vaginal microbiomes, which it says is the largest dataset of its kind. The company has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and entered research partnerships with institutions including the CDC, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Founder Jessica Richman says uBiome is moving into drug discovery and therapeutics, planning to commercialize drug-discovery efforts and develop patent assets. To support that work it will relocate its therapeutics unit into new Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters while remaining San Francisco–based. uBiome is also bolstering its board with former Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez to support the therapeutics push. Financially, the company has ample runway following a new $83 million Series C and a total of $105 million raised to date. uBiome develops consumer and clinical tests that sequence microbial DNA from fecal samples to profile the gut microbiome. It is launching a clinical screening product called SmartGut that uses 16S rRNA gene sequencing to identify dozens of microbial genera and species. The company operates a College of American Pathologists (CAP)–accredited clinical lab and says it has submitted testing methods to a peer‑reviewed journal. Customers can collect samples at home; a basic gut kit is listed for $89 on the site and collection takes about two minutes. uBiome reports a database of close to 100,000 gut samples, up from 2,500 four years earlier, and came out of Y Combinator in 2012. The company raised funding to support the SmartGut launch, lab operations, and team growth. uBiome sells consumer microbiome swab kits (three different swab-site kits) that users collect, ship back, and receive results from; the most basic kit is priced at $89 and is available via ubiome.com and Amazon Prime in the U.S. The company analyzes samples using patent-pending robot-run sample methods and machine-learning algorithms and says it holds the largest private dataset of human microbiome samples. Users receive a login to view results in about six weeks and can compare their microbiome to cohorts such as vegans, overweight people, or heavy drinkers. Shipping is free in the U.S. uBiome is Y Combinator–backed and previously ran an Indiegogo campaign that raised $351,193 against a $100,000 goal. The company states its goal is to generate large-scale microbiome data for researchers by crowdsourcing samples and analysis.

Total raised

$103M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Sep 2018