DURHAM — Ramona Optics closed a $25 million Series A financing round to expand commercial operations, product development and partnerships as the microscope maker prepares to move into a larger downtown Durham office.
The Sept. 22 financing announcement said ARCH Venture Partners led the round. Stealthpoint Ventures, ND Capital, Fall Line Capital, Hamamatsu Ventures, Murchison Capital Partners and Overlap Holdings also participated.
Ramona said it will use the capital to scale commercial operations, advance its multi-camera array microscopy technology, expand assay capabilities on its platforms and pursue strategic partnerships. The company did not disclose its valuation, revenue or a hiring target.
Axios Raleigh independently reported that Ramona has about 25 employees and plans to grow its sales operation and add engineering support. The company is moving from its Main Street office to a larger space in the Venable Center in downtown Durham.
Founded in California in 2016, Ramona relocated to Durham after co-founder Roarke Horstmeyer joined Duke University’s biomedical engineering faculty. Axios reported that the company’s early local customers included Duke laboratories and AgBiome.
Ramona sells Vireo and Kestrel benchtop systems that use arrays of cameras and software to capture and analyze biological samples at scale. The financing announcement said the products are in use by academic and industry customers, but it did not provide sales figures.
The financing represents a material growth step for Durham’s life-sciences equipment sector: an approximately 25-person company now has new capital for commercial expansion, engineering support and a larger local office.
Image: Contextual laboratory-microscope photograph by the National Cancer Institute via Unsplash under the Unsplash License. The equipment shown is not a Ramona Optics system. The image was cropped, labeled and given the standard NC Business Desk footer; no generative content.