SomaLogic to go public to take advantage of strong market, president says

BOULDER — Almost a quarter ago, SomaLogic Inc. raised more than $200 million in venture capital to fund its protein-analysis technology development. Now, just a few months later, it’s going after a larger pot of cash driven by bullish investors by going public.

The company is the latest in the region to announce it’s going public, saying it will merge with a special purpose acquisition company in the third quarter of the year in a deal that both values it right now at $1.23 billion and would add up to $651 million in cash onto its books.

SomaLogic’s leap into the public markets isn’t all too surprising, as CEO Roy Smythe told BizWest that he could imagine the company going onto an exchange “in the relatively near future” back in December if it could generate reproducible funding.

In an interview with BizWest, Melody Harris, SomaLogic president and chief operating officer, said the company decided to take advantage of the bullishness of the financial markets as of late, which were propped up during deepest times of the pandemic by low interest rates and other efforts by the Federal Reserve to keep the credit markets liquid.

She also said getting those funds in good times can buffer the company in case of another severe downturn.

“Initially, no one in any industry, in any sector knew how they were going to survive and manage through the COVID pandemic,” she said. “And so we wanted to shore up our balance sheet to make sure that we’re a little more stable in the event of any oncoming macro events.”

SomaLogic develops platforms to read thousands of proteins in a patient’s blood or urine sample that may signal illnesses or future health conditions and suggest via machine learning potential treatments.

The company’s main source of revenue right now is measuring samples of clinical trial volunteers for pharmaceutical companies, and the funds from the go-public deal will in part fund SomaLogic’s buildout of its commercial team.

Harris also said SomaLogic is in talks with multiple state and university-affiliated hospital systems across the country to pilot the technology with physicians. It’s also continuing to consider how it can sell its technology directly to consumers, but Harris said that is still a long way off due to additional regulatory clearances that would have to be met.

Although the company is making a step up in its visibility, Harris said the company doesn’t intend to move its headquarters out of Boulder. While it currently has approximately 175 employees in the city, she said the company will be looking to hire remote workers more often due to the pandemic showing that a work-from-home model can work for companies like it.

“As far as headquarters, the space, and where the lab will be, we’re staying here,” she said.

© 2021 BizWest Media LLC

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