Pleno

Pleno, Inc. operates in the multi-omics instrument platform sector, focusing on biological target detection for clinical testing and biomedical research. The company was founded in 2017 by Dr. Pieter van Rooyen, a serial entrepreneur with a background in electrical engineering and a track record of commercializing technologies in various high-tech industries. Van Rooyen previously co-founded and led several successful startups, including Zyray Wireless (acquired by Broadcom), ecoATM (acquired by Outerwall), and Edico Genome (acquired by Illumina for $100 million in 2018). His experience in developing and commercializing complex technologies is directly relevant to Pleno's mission.

Pleno's core business revolves around its proprietary RAPTOR™ instrument platform, which is designed to make complex multi-omic analysis more accessible and affordable. The company’s business model is centered on the sale of these instruments and associated reagent and consumable kits to clinical labs, research institutions, and pharmaceutical companies. The key technology is termed "Hypercoding™," which merges signal processing techniques from the telecommunications industry with advanced biochemistry. This approach allows for the high-throughput detection of a wide range of biomarkers—including DNA, RNA, proteins, and methylation—from a single patient sample. The system is capable of analyzing up to 10,000 targets per sample and processing up to 10,000 samples per day. This capacity aims to fill a market gap between the lower-plex capabilities of PCR and the higher costs and longer turnaround times of next-generation sequencing (NGS).

The company's target applications are broad, including oncology for early cancer screening and monitoring, infectious disease detection, non-invasive prenatal testing, and proteomics. By providing a platform with a cost structure comparable to PCR but with the flexibility to analyze thousands of targets, Pleno serves clients who require scalable and cost-effective genomic testing solutions. The company has secured significant funding to support its growth, including a $15 million Pre-Series A in May 2022, a $40 million Series A in October 2022, and a $25 million Series B in December 2024, with key investors like Deerfield Management, Foresite Capital, and Medical Excellence Capital. In late 2024, Dr. Vik Vaz, formerly of Illumina, took over as CEO to lead the company into its commercialization phase, with the full commercial launch of the RAPTOR platform expected in the first quarter of 2025.

Keywords: multi-omics, biological target detection, genomic testing, Hypercoding, RAPTOR platform, clinical diagnostics, biomedical research, molecular genomics, oncology diagnostics, infectious disease testing