Pacific Channel portfolio company Engender Technologies has been acquired by a global corporate with significant existing operations in New Zealand.
Engender was co-founded by the University of Auckland and Pacific Channel in 2011. Engender has developed a unique cell sorting technology with the potential to replace flow cytometry in a number of applications.
It is an innovation deemed significant for the trillion-dollar global livestock market.
Engender’s Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Cather Simpson, has been the driving force behind the technology’s development. “The R&D team is over the moon! Working from inside an international leader in the livestock industry will allow us to fully accelerate translating our technology to benefit farmers.”
“The acquirer has been a valuable partner in the development of our technology since it first committed resources to Engender in 2016” said Engender’s Brent Ogilvie.
“The acquirer has signaled its intention to keep Engender’s staff in New Zealand where the research and development expertise lies. Their backing
as an international strategic partner will ensure that Engender can take its Kiwi innovation worldwide.”
Kieran Jina, a Senior Associate at Pacific Channel, expressed his enthusiasm in taking the funds from this transaction and re-investing them in other brilliant kiwi technology companies over the next few years.
Will Charles, the Executive Director of Commercialisation said “we are delighted for Cather and her team, and very pleased that working with local investors like Pacific Channel is starting to bear fruit in getting the great science done at the University of Auckland into global supply chains. The recycling of capital is critical to our ability to continue to fund the next generation of great start-ups, of which Cather and her lab are generators of.”
