Guardant Health Announces $30 Million Series B Financing Led By Khosla Ventures

Financing Will Support Commercialization Efforts for Guardant Health's Non-invasive Cancer Diagnostic Test

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Apr 22, 2014, 09:00 ET

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Guardant Health™ today announced the completion of its Series B financing, for over $30 million, to support the continued commercial expansion of its GUARDANT360™ non-invasive tumor sequencing test. Khosla Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investor Sequoia Capital and new investor Pejman Mar Ventures.

"We are seeing strong interest in GUARDANT360 from both oncologists and patients that are benefiting from having access to non-invasive, real time tumor sequencing," said Helmy Eltoukhy, Ph.D., Guardant Health's co-founder and chief executive officer. "We are proud to welcome Khosla Ventures to the Guardant Health team as well as of the continued support of our existing partners and investors. The additional financing will allow Guardant Health to accelerate the expansion of its commercial operations to support growing demand and ensure a distinctively high level of service for our physicians and patients."

GUARDANT360 is the first pan-cancer test that aids oncologists in making more informed, personalized treatment decisions based upon the patient's specific genomic alterations across dozens of genes via a simple blood test. Many treatments fail over time since the genetic make up of most cancers continues to evolve in response to therapy and to date biopsies have been the only way of detecting these changes. The test is built on Digital Sequencing™, a proprietary method of capturing and genetically profiling trace fragments of tumor DNA that are shed into the blood stream ("cell-free" DNA), and provides high-fidelity tumor sequencing information at the single-molecule level.

"We see this technology as highly disruptive and are pleased to partner with Guardant Health to help vastly improve cancer care through liquid biopsies," commented Samir Kaul, founding partner of Khosla Ventures, who will join the Guardant board of directors.

Existing board member and Sequoia Capital partner Warren Hogarth added, "We are excited to continue to support Guardant Health as the team, led by founders Helmy Eltoukhy and AmirAli Talasaz, has made significant progress in a very short timeframe establishing Guardant Health as the leader in non-invasive cancer diagnostics."

To learn more, visit www.guardanthealth.com.

About Guardant Health  Guardant Health is focused on developing breakthrough diagnostic technologies that can transform cancer from a silent killer into a manageable disease. Guardant was founded in 2012 by a team of serial entrepreneurs with expertise in next-generation sequencing, single-cell genomics and cancer diagnostics. The team is committed to positively and significantly impacting patient health through technology that addresses long-standing unmet needs in oncology.

About Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies as well as traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile and silicon technology arenas. Vinod Khosla founded the firm in 2004 and was formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and founder of Sun Microsystems. Khosla Ventures is based in Menlo Park, California.

About Sequoia Capital  Sequoia Capital helps founders turn imaginative ideas into enduring companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs," the Sequoia team has worked closely with legendary founders such as Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner of Cisco, David Filo and Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, Max Levchin, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel of PayPal, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube, and Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn. Sequoia is now helping the next generation of innovators build the lasting companies of tomorrow.

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SOURCE Guardant Health