Nexcelom Bioscience announces strategic growth investment from Ampersand Capital Partners

LAWRENCE, Mass., March 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nexcelom Bioscience, a leading provider of cell counting and analysis products for biomedical research and the biopharma industry, announced today that it has received a strategic investment from Ampersand Capital Partners. The funding will be primarily used to support Nexcelom's worldwide growth initiatives.

Founded in 2003, Nexcelom is a fast-growing supplier of innovative cellular analysis instruments, software and related consumables used in a broad range of research fields including immuno-oncology, cell therapy, drug discovery, vaccine development and manufacturing, and therapeutic cell line generation. The company's two core platforms are the Celigo and Cellometer lines.

• The Celigo benchtop image cytometry system provides whole-well imaging and highly quantitative data for demanding cell-based analytical applications. The system allows users to perform high-speed, fully automated imaging and quantification of a wide range of cell types and sample formats, enabling novel cell-based assays on two-dimensional and three-dimensional cell culture models.
• The Company's Cellometer line of automated cell counters allow scientists to rapidly obtain and analyze cell images from just 20µl of sample. With a few clicks, users are able to perform cell count, concentration and viability on cell lines and primary cell samples utilizing both bright field and fluorescence image capture and analysis technologies.

"Nexcelom has experienced dramatic growth over the past few years as we have expanded our commercial team and introduced new applications for our Celigo and Cellometer instrument platforms." commented CEO Peter Li. "Ampersand will help provide Nexcelom with the capital and expertise to further penetrate the market and expand our product portfolio, including the addition of high value reagent systems for our platforms, so that we can better serve our customers around the world."

"The amount of innovation within the biopharmaceutical industry is accelerating, and Nexcelom's products are important tools for scientists in some of the most exciting and growing areas of the marketplace," said Eric Lev, Partner at Ampersand Capital Partners. "We have been impressed with the wide variety of important applications the Company has developed for the Celigo and Cellometer platforms, and see numerous opportunities to expand the Company's presence in its academic, government and biopharmaceutical sectors."

"Nexcelom was founded with the goal of assisting bench scientists by automating tedious and manual cell counting processes," added Founder and CTO Jean Qiu. "Over the past fifteen years the Company has worked closely with its customers on the development of powerful tools for cellular analysis. I look forward to working with the Ampersand team to execute on the next phase of Nexcelom's growth."

About Nexcelom Bioscience

Headquartered in Lawrence, MA, Nexcelom Bioscience LLC is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative Cellometer and Celigo image cytometry products designed for cell analysis in life science and biomedical research. Developed per researchers' requests, the Cellometer instruments cover basic cell counting, viability and cell based assays with 20uL of sample, while the Celigo is a high-throughput microwell image cytometer. Nexcelom's solutions automate time-consuming procedures, enabling scientists to focus less on the process and more on the research results. Nexcelom's products are used in the laboratories of leading pharmaceutical companies, biotech organizations, universities and research institutions. For more information contact Nexcelom Bioscience at +1 978-327-5340 or visit www.nexcelom.com.

About Ampersand Capital Partners

Founded in 1988, Ampersand is a middle market private equity firm dedicated to growth-oriented investments in the healthcare sector. With offices in Boston and Amsterdam, Ampersand leverages its unique blend of private equity and operating experience to build value and drive superior long-term performance alongside its portfolio company management teams. Ampersand has helped build numerous market-leading companies across each of our core healthcare sectors, including Brammer Bio, Confluent Medical, Genewiz, Genoptix, Talecris Biotherapeutics and Viracor-IBT Laboratories. Additional information about Ampersand is available at www.ampersandcapital.com.

CONTACT: Peter Li, Nexcelom Bioscience, pli@nexcelom.com