- Rockhill Partners
Infobox Company
name = Rockhill Partners
company_
type = Private
foundation = 2005
industry =Venture capital
homepage = [http://www.rockhill-partners.com/ www.rockhill-partners.com]Rockhill Partners is an early-stage venture capital partnership. The firm invests in companies in the life science and technology sectors throughout the U.S. One of its companies, LightSpeed Genomics, is involved in the race to decode the
human genome faster and more economically than ever before.Portfolio companies
Rockhill's first investment was
Proteon Therapeutics . Proteon's core technology was created by Dr. F. Nicholas Franano while atJohns Hopkins University .Rockhill's second investment,
LightSpeed Genomics , is based on technology created atMIT . According to "In Sequence", a publication which covers the race to decode the human genome, "LightSpeed Genomics, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is developing a high-speedDNA sequencing platform that 'will allow human genome sequencing to be performed more quickly and less expensively than ever before,' according to the company’s website...LightSpeed founder and CEO Josh (Jekwan) Ryu told In Sequence...that the company is currently in stealth mode and not yet ready to talk about its plans. Ryu, who holds a PhD from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology , is a formerAffymetrix staff scientist with 3 patents (US2005/0239113, US2005/0239114, US2005/0239115). Stanley Hong, a former colleague of Ryu from MIT, is a co-founder and chief technology officer of the company...Formerly called Solametrix, LightSpeed Genomics received an undisclosed amount of funding from Rockhill Partners and other angel investors in March 2007." [See http://www.in-sequence.com/issues/2_6/short_reads/144871-1.html] [The company's website is located at http://www.lsgen.com]Professor
George Church ofHarvard University chairs LightSpeed's scientific advisory board. [See Church's cv at http://arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/tech.html] With Nobel prize winnerWalter Gilbert , Church developed the first direct genomic sequencing method and helped initiate the Human Genome Project, both in 1984. Church and a team are currently competing in the Archon X-Prize Competition. To win the $10 million genomics prize purse, teams must successfully sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days for less than $10,000 per genome. [See http://www.xprize.org/genomics/press-release/revolutionary-geneticist-dr-george-church-to-compete-for-the-archon-x-prize-f]Rockhill's third publicly disclosed investment,
Orbis Biosciences , was formed around technology created at theUniversity of Illinois . Details about the company remain sketchy. [The company's website is located at http://www.orbisbio.com]References
*cite news |first=Rob |last=Roberts |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Proteon secures $12M in financing |url=http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2007/04/02/daily30.html |work=Kansas City Business Journal |publisher= |date=Thursday, April 5, 2007 |accessdate=2008-07-27
*cite news |first=Ryan |last=McBride |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Proteon chief pulls the GelTex band back together |url=http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/04/07/newscolumn2-Proteon-chief-pulls-the-GelTex-band-back-together.html |work=MHT Mass High Tech |publisher= |date=Monday, April 7, 2008 |accessdate=2008-07-27External links
* [http://www.rockhill-partners.com Rockhill Partners] Official site.
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