What Pleno does

Pleno Inc. is a San Diego-based, venture-backed biotechnology company founded in 2021 that has developed a proprietary biomarker detection technology called Hypercoding, which applies code-multiplexing techniques derived from digital telecommunications to multi-omic sample analysis. The company's commercial product is the RAPTOR benchtop instrument platform, which uses standard 96- or 384-well plate consumables (Plenoid probes) to simultaneously detect up to 10,000 biomarkers per sample across DNA, RNA, methylation, and protein modalities in a single run, with end-to-end workflows under eight hours and claimed 100x sample throughput versus next-generation sequencing (NGS) and 1,000x target multiplexing versus PCR.

The company targets a horizontal set of clinical and research applications — primarily oncology, pharmacogenomics, and proteomics, with secondary use cases in infectious disease, non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)/newborn screening, genotyping, and agrigenomics. Its go-to-market is enterprise field sales through an Early Access Program and Apps Lab evaluation services, with full commercial availability of production RAPTOR instruments targeted for early 2025 and the first commercial agreement (Slopes Bio for up to five instruments and 100,000+ samples annually) announced in August 2025. Products are sold research-use-only at this stage, not for diagnostic procedures.

Pleno has raised approximately $80 million in total funding across a Pre-Series A ($15M, May 2022), Series A ($40M, October 2022), and Series B ($25M, December 2024) from investors including Deerfield Management, Foresite Capital, Medical Excellence Capital, and Alexandria Venture Investments. The leadership team includes former executives from Illumina, PacBio, Thermo Fisher Scientific, GenMark Diagnostics (Roche), Amgen, BCG, and McKinsey. The company employed 64 full-time staff as of January 2024 with stated plans for rapid headcount expansion. Recurring revenue is intended to come from sale of Plenoid reagent and consumable kits tied to installed RAPTOR instruments.

Name

Pleno

Legal name

Pleno Inc.

Website

https://plenoinc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Pleno Inc. is a San Diego-based biotechnology company that develops the RAPTOR benchtop instrument and proprietary Hypercoding technology to detect up to 10,000 multi-omic biomarkers per sample in a single run. It serves clinical and research labs across oncology, pharmacogenomics, proteomics, and related genomics applications through direct enterprise sales.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Diego

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. RAPTOR Instrument Sales: Sale of RAPTOR benchtop instrument platform to medium to high-throughput labs. Production targeted for late 2024 with general availability in early 2025.
2. Reagent and Consumable Kits: Recurring revenue from sale of Plenoid probes (Reagent and Consumable Kits) used in RAPTOR instrument runs. Includes custom-designed probes for customer-specific biomarker panels.
3. Apps Lab Services: Early access program providing fully automated workflow environment for customer sample processing and data generation. Limited availability for onsite customer evaluations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Pleno develops and sells the RAPTOR benchtop instrument platform powered by its proprietary Hypercoding technology, which performs multiplexed detection of up to 10,000+ biomarkers (DNA, RNA, methylation, and proteins) per sample using standard 96- or 384-well plate consumables. The platform is complemented by Plenoid probe reagent and consumable kits for the RAPTOR workflow and an Apps Lab early-access service for sample processing and customer evaluation.

Product overview

Pleno offers the RAPTOR instrument platform as its core product, a benchtop system powered by proprietary Hypercoding technology that enables multi-omic biomarker detection (DNA, RNA, methylation, and proteins) at unprecedented scale—detecting up to 10,000 targets per sample with sample throughput scalable from 1 to 384 samples per run. The system is complemented by Reagent and Consumable Kits containing Plenoid probes that are designed specifically for the RAPTOR workflow. Together, these products form a complete solution for high-throughput biological target detection in applications including oncology, pharmacogenomics, proteomics, infectious diseases, and agrigenomics.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• RAPTOR: Benchtop instrument platform for multi-omic biomarker detection capable of detecting up to 10,000+ targets per sample with sample throughput scalable from 1-384 samples per run.
• Hypercoding

Products and services

• RAPTOR Instrument Platform Benchtop instrument platform delivering ultra-scalable sample throughput (1-384 samples per run) while detecting 10-10,000+ biomarkers per sample including DNA, RNA, methylation, and proteins. Uses standard 96- or 384-well plate consumables, with 3-4 hour instrument run time and end-to-end workflow typically less than 8 hours. Targeted at medium to high-throughput clinical and research labs.
• Reagent and Consumable Kits (Plenoid Probes) Plenoid probe kits and consumables containing synthesized circularizable DNA oligos with unique Hypercodes assigned to each biomarker target. Used for target capture, conversion, and detection in the RAPTOR workflow. Sold as recurring revenue consumables, including custom-designed probes for customer-specific biomarker panels.
• Apps Lab Services Early access program providing a fully automated workflow environment for customer sample processing and data generation, with limited availability for onsite customer evaluations of the RAPTOR platform.

Quantifiable outcome

• 10,000 targets per sample detection capability vs typical PCR panels of 10-50 targets
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments7 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability3 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.

• Slopes Bio, Inc.flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 August 2025Comprehensive commercial agreement for biological target detection and personalized health. Slopes Bio to purchase up to five RAPTOR instruments and consumables for 100,000+ samples annually. Companies jointly developing high-sample-volume applications. First two instruments deployed in Utah production lab September 2025.
• BioLegend (Revvity)coreTechnology or Integration · 8 January 2024Integration of RAPTOR with BioLegend's TotalSeq antibodies for multi-omic biomarker detection. First deployment of early access RAPTOR with Hypercoding technology verified outside development lab. Enables customers to incorporate protein markers into DNA, RNA, or methylation detection panels.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Illumina: Dominant NGS platform provider with the largest installed base of sequencers globally. Competes with Pleno in clinical genomics and multi-omics, though Illumina's core chemistry (sequencing by synthesis) is fundamentally different from Hypercoding. Several Pleno executives and board members came from Illumina, and Slopes Bio represents a target customer profile that Illumina has historically served.
• Bio-Techne (ProteinSimple): Major life sciences tools provider whose ProteinSimple division offers proteomics and Western blot instruments. Plenoprotegrations with BioLegend (now part of Revvity/Bio-Techne) demonstrate ecosystem adjacency, and Bio-Techne's protein-detection portfolio competes with Plenoprotegrated multi-omic capabilities.
• Revvity (formerly PerkinElmer): Major life sciences and diagnostics company whose BioLegend division supplies the TotalSeq antibody reagents integrated with PlenoproRAPTOR platform. Revvity's broader diagnostics and life sciences tools portfolio overlaps with Plenoin clinical genomics and multi-omic detection applications.

Direct peers

• Element Biosciences: Developer of the AVITI benchtop sequencer using an alternative chemistry (avidity sequencing) that competes on cost and accessibility in clinical and research labs—directly analogous to Pleno's positioning of RAPTOR. Targets medium-throughput labs seeking NGS alternatives with improved economics, overlapping with Pleno's go-to-market focus.
• Pacific Biosciences (PacBio): Long-read sequencing instrument provider (Revio, Onso, Vega) targeting clinical and research labs with high-accuracy sequencing. Competes for the same instrument-purchase budget at medium-to-high-throughput labs. Erik Williamson, Pleno's VP of Engineering, previously launched three PacBio instruments, evidencing close technical positioning.
• Oxford Nanopore Technologies: Developer of nanopore-based sequencing platforms (MinION, PromethION, GridION) offering scalable, real-time DNA/RNA sequencing. Competes with Pleno in the benchtop-to-high-throughput genomic instrument market, particularly for applications requiring flexible sample-to-answer workflows.
• Singular Genomics: Developer of the G4 benchtop sequencer positioned as a low-cost, medium-throughput alternative to Illumina. Targets clinical and research labs seeking affordable sequencing instruments—directly comparable to Plenoroadmap for accessible, multi-omic-capable benchtop instruments.
• MGI Tech: Chinese-headquartered sequencing and multi-omics instrument provider (DNBSEQ platforms) offering cost-competitive alternatives to Illumina. Competes globally in clinical and research genomics, and its expansion into multi-omic reagents and automation parallels Pleno's platform approach.
• Standard BioTools (formerly Fluidigm): Developer of mass cytometry and microfluidic instrumentation for multi-omic single-cell analysis. Competes with Plenoin the targeted multi-omic detection market with benchtop-format instruments aimed at translational and clinical research labs.

Emerging players

• Bionano Genomics: Developer of optical genome mapping instruments (Saphyr) for structural variation detection. While focused on a different genomic application (large structural variants vs. high-plex targeted detection), Bionano competes for instrument-purchase budgets at genomics labs and represents a comparable emerging instrument-platform business model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Pleno_Inc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/pleno-inc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Pleno