Illumina raises $40M for accelerator matching fund

Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) raised $40 million from Viking Global Investors for its Accelerator Boost Capital fund, which will provide dollar-for-dollar matching funds for graduates of its Illumina Accelerator. The Boost fund will match any amount a company raises between $1 million and $5 million during its six-month funding cycle within the accelerator program.

The accelerator provides start-ups developing next-generation sequencing (NGS) applications with six months of seed funding, business guidance and access to its sequencing systems and San Francisco Bay Area facilities (see BioCentury Extra, Feb. 12, 2014). ...