A high-res mi­cro­scope the size of a toast­er? A mi­croscopy start­up earns big-name VC back­ers

When Bo Jing en­rolled at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty to be close to his girl­friend, he didn’t ex­pect to in­vent some­thing that would have in­vestors ea­ger­ly dig­ging in­to their wal­lets. He was just hap­py mak­ing the best mi­cro­scope he could.

He de­vel­oped the tech­nol­o­gy while fin­ish­ing up his PhD at Ox­ford, and with the en­cour­age­ment of a pro­fes­sor, he launched a com­pa­ny called ONI around it in 2016. On Thurs­day, that mi­cro­scope earned ONI an­oth­er $75 mil­lion from a slate of in­vestors led by ARCH and Cas­din Cap­i­tal.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER