Existing investors in the fundraising include Lansdowne Partners, IP Group and Invesco Perpetual, while unnamed institutional investors from the US also participated, as well as Oxford Nanopore’s marketing partner Illumina UK.

The money will be used to accelerate the development of the company’s technology, which detects and analyses single molecules. It will also fund Oxford Nanopore’s main project, which utilises this technology in DNA sequencing.

The company has raised nearly £50 million, including this latest investment, since it was formed in 2005.