Funding profile · Genomics tools

Loop Genomics

One Form D, one announced round, one undisclosed exit. The filing sits under a different name from the brand, and the filed number is larger than the number the company announced nine months later.

$9.18MSold at the only Form D, filed Feb 14, 2018
$10.42MOffered in that filing, leaving $1.24M unsold
12Investors of record, about $765,000 each
$8.0MSeries A as announced, November 1, 2018

Data as of September 22, 2026. Company-reported figures are labeled.

Rounds at a glance

When Round Amount Investors Source
2016 Y Combinator, Winter 2016 batch Not disclosed Y Combinator YC data
Jan to Feb 2018 Equity offering, first sale Jan 30, 2018 $9,177,231 sold of $10,420,000 offered 12, not named in the filing Form D
Nov 1, 2018 Series A as announced $8,000,000 Khosla Ventures (lead), Fusion Fund, DN Capital, Y Combinator, WSGR, Wisemont Capital Trade press
Aug 2020 No active raise None CEO said the company was comfortable with its cash runway Trade press
Feb 7, 2022 Acquisition Terms not disclosed Element Biosciences Acquirer release
2015 to 2022 Federal grants None found NIH RePORTER and NSF return no awards Not found

What the filings show

MetaBiotech Corp · Form D · filed Feb 14, 2018

First sale
Jan 30, 2018
Offered
$10,420,000 equity
Sold
$9,177,231 · $1,242,769 remaining
Investors
12 · average about $764,769
Exemption
Rule 506(b) · no non-accredited investors
Fees
No sales commissions, no finders fees
Issuer
Delaware corporation, year of incorporation 2015, industry group Biotechnology, 5941 Optical Court, San Jose, CA
Related persons
Tuval Ben Yehezkel, executive officer and director, the only person listed. Signed as CEO and President.
Filing
SEC EDGAR, CIK 0001731460

Reading the filings

  1. The money landed nine months before the news.First sale January 30, 2018, Form D filed February 14, 2018, Series A press release November 1, 2018. Anyone tracking Regulation D filings knew the round had closed three quarters before the trade press reported it.
  2. The announced number is smaller than the filed number.The company announced $8.0 million. The Form D reported $9,177,231 already sold, out of $10,420,000 offered, with $1,242,769 still open. That is a gap of $1.18 million between the filing and the headline. No amended Form D was ever filed to reconcile the two, so the difference is unexplained on the record.
  3. Twelve checks, about $765,000 each.$9,177,231 divided by 12 investors is $764,769. That is fund-sized rather than angel-sized, and it matches the six named institutional and platform investors plus a small tail.
  4. The brand is not the filer.A full text search of EDGAR for Loop Genomics returns nothing. The filer is MetaBiotech Corp. The same entity holds the three published patent families and filed the LOOP GENOMICS trademark, which was abandoned in September 2019. A screen run on the trade name alone would conclude the company never raised under Regulation D.
  5. One filing, then silence.No amendment and no second Form D between February 2018 and the February 2022 acquisition. In August 2020 the CEO told GenomeWeb the company was not raising. Firms that use Section 4(a)(2) file no Form D at all, so the gap is not proof that nothing moved, but no later round was ever announced either.
  6. Nothing non-dilutive.NIH RePORTER shows no awards to the company and none to the founder as principal investigator. NSF shows none. Every dollar of capital on the public record is equity, which is unusual for a sequencing tools startup of this vintage.

Commercial signals

Signal Detail Source type
Products LoopSeq Complete for 16S and 18S from 2018, a transcriptome kit in March 2019, LoopSeq Solo in August 2020 for up to 6,000 clonal isolates at once. Company-stated
Pricing Transcriptome kit $70 a sample and service $299 a sample in 2019. The archived site listed 16S service at $49 a sample for 200 samples, falling to $25 at 1,000 or more. Company-stated
Customers Geisinger, Cancer Research UK, Vancouver Prostate Centre and UFL named by the company. General Automation Lab Technologies named in trade press. Twist Biopharma ran a joint webinar in June 2021. Company and partner
Distribution Distributors secured since 2018 covering Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Taiwan, Sweden and the UK. Trade press
Headcount Ten employees in 2018. In 2020 the CEO cited roughly 50 percent year over year growth. Trade press
Evidence Two vendor co-authored papers in 2021, then independent use through 2025, including 16S analysis of 377 baseline sputum samples from the ORBIT-3 and ORBIT-4 phase III trials. Public record
Exit Element Biosciences closed the acquisition on February 7, 2022 for undisclosed terms. It was Element’s first acquisition. Element had raised $276 million in June 2021 and about $400 million in total at that point. Acquirer release
Asset status Element shipped Element LoopSeq kits for AVITI in December 2022. As of September 23, 2026 no LoopSeq product page appears in Element’s sitemap and the archived product pages return 404. Public record

What to watch

  • An Element Biosciences S-1. Element raised a further $277 million in 2024 and reports more than $680 million lifetime. A registration statement would be the first document required to state what Loop cost.
  • Any disclosure that assigns a value to the acquired Loop assets, whether in an Element filing or in a later transaction.
  • Continuation patents carrying Metabiotech priority dates. A 2023 Element PCT filing shares a title and inventor with the 2015 Metabiotech patent.
  • Whether the LoopSeq line returns to the Element catalog or stays retired.

The Loop Genomics story on Healthcare DiscoveryHealthcare Discovery

Related companies

  • XGenomes: Also in Diagnostics. A Cambridge, Massachusetts company reading DNA in five letter words instead of one base at a time
  • Data Driven Bioscience: Also in Diagnostics. A Durham company that sells hospital laboratories a kit for reading a tumor’s DNA and RNA in a single preparation, on the sequencer the lab already owns
  • Isabl: Also in Diagnostics. A Memorial Sloan Kettering spin out that reads the whole tumor genome and transcriptome instead of a gene panel
  • LSK Technologies: Also in Diagnostics. A toaster sized plate reader, built by two graduate students from off the shelf parts, that read paper based Zika tests on hundreds of patient samples in Brazil

Sources

  1. Public recordForm D, MetaBiotech Corp, CIK 0001731460SEC · Feb 14, 2018
  2. Public recordEDGAR full text search and company search for Loop Genomics, no resultsSEC · checked Sep 23, 2026
  3. Public recordNIH RePORTER and NSF award searches, no awards to Loop Genomics or MetaBiotech CorpNIH, NSF · checked Sep 23, 2026
  4. Public recordUS10233490B2 and two further published families, assignee Metabiotech CorporationUSPTO via Google Patents
  5. Public recordLOOP GENOMICS trademark, serial 87583090, owner Metabiotech Corporation, abandoned Sep 12, 2019USPTO via Justia
  6. IndependentLoop Genomics Closes $8M Series A RoundGenomeWeb · Nov 1, 2018
  7. IndependentLoop Genomics Seeks Slice of Sanger Market With New Clonal Isolate Library Preparation TechnologyGenomeWeb · Aug 2020
  8. IndependentElement Biosciences acquires Loop Genomics to add long-read tech to DNA sequencing platformFierce Biotech · Feb 9, 2022
  9. IndependentElement Biosciences nets $277M ahead of new sequencer launchFierce Biotech · Jul 2024
  10. IndependentLoop Genomics company record, batch W16YCDB · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  11. CompanyElement Biosciences Closes Acquisition of Loop GenomicsElement Biosciences · Feb 7, 2022
  12. CompanyLoop Genomics kit and service pricing releasePR Newswire · Mar 5, 2019
  13. CompanyLoop Genomics website, 16S service pricingInternet Archive · 2021 capture

Compiled from SEC, USPTO, NIH, NSF and other public records and published reports as of September 22, 2026. Form D notices report offerings under Regulation D; amounts reflect the filing date and may not capture later sales. Healthcare Venture Capital Fund holds no position in Loop Genomics or Element Biosciences. This page is not an offer to sell or a recommendation to buy any security.