PetaGene
PetaGene is a Cambridge, UK-based software company providing lossless genomic data compression software (PetaSuite) for BAM and FASTQ.gz files, reducing storage costs and transfer times by 60-90% for biopharmaceutical companies, hospitals and academic research institutions through transparent integration with existing bioinformatics pipelines.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2016
- HeadquartersCambridge, United Kingdom
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What PetaGene does
PetaGene Ltd. is a privately-held Cambridge, United Kingdom-based software company founded in 2015/2016 by Cambridge University PhDs Dan Greenfield (CEO) and Vaughan Wittorff (Chief Commercial Officer), who originated the technology from a research collaboration with the Stegle Group at EMBL-EBI and graduated from the Entrepreneur First incubator in 2016. The company develops lossless genomic data compression software for BAM and FASTQ.gz files using species-specific corpus-based algorithms, achieving 60-90% reductions in storage costs and data transfer times while preserving data bit-for-bit with MD5 validation. Its core product is PetaSuite, complemented by PetaLink (a user-mode LD_PRELOAD library providing transparent virtual file access so existing bioinformatics tools operate unchanged against compressed data), BayesCal (a Bayesian quality-score refinement module that boosts compression by 30-70% while improving genotyping accuracy), PetaSuite Cloud Edition (AWS/Azure/GCP-native streaming compression), PetaSuite Protect (FIPS 140-2 compliant AES-256 encryption with cryptographic audit ledger for HIPAA/GDPR compliance), and the adjacent cunoFS POSIX object-storage access product.
The company's go-to-market is enterprise field sales targeting biopharmaceutical companies, hospitals, healthcare providers and academic/research institutions, augmented by exclusive distribution agreements with Genique Lifesciences in India and Alliance Global across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, plus an embedded technology partnership with NVIDIA Clara Parabricks Pipelines. Revenue is generated through multi-year software license subscriptions priced as a share of compression savings achieved (with free decompression tools to avoid vendor lock-in), cloud edition subscriptions, and PetaSuite Protect compliance subscriptions. The company has three Bio-IT World Best of Show awards (2016, 2018, 2019), FIPS 140-2 and HIPAA/GDPR-aligned compliance positioning, and a global operational footprint spanning the UK, US, Europe, India, the Middle East, Africa and East Asia.
PetaGene's customer base includes AstraZeneca's Centre for Genomics Research (200,000+ datasets, 76% average reduction), a top-three US Children's Hospital (1.5 million files, 3PB, 59% savings with ROI in two months), Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, TGen, the 10K NIHR Rare Disease Genomes Project, Clinical Genomics Gothenburg and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine. The company has raised approximately $2.36M in disclosed equity funding plus repeated undisclosed rounds from Acequia Capital through May 2023, with its largest disclosed round a $2.1M Series A led by Romulus Capital in December 2018. As of April 2022, customers had compressed more than 3 million genome files cumulatively using PetaSuite.
PetaGene firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- PetaGene
- Legal name
- PetaGene Ltd.
- Website
- https://petagene.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2016
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- PetaGene is a Cambridge, UK-based software company providing lossless genomic data compression software (PetaSuite) for BAM and FASTQ.gz files, reducing storage costs and transfer times by 60-90% for biopharmaceutical companies, hospitals and academic research institutions through transparent integration with existing bioinformatics pipelines.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
PetaGene industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Genomic Data Compression Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Molecular & Genetic Testing (PCR/NGS/qPCR) (HLAGADAF)
Keywords
Where PetaGene is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Cambridge
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
PetaGene business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Software Licenses: Commercial licenses for PetaSuite compression software. License fees are based on compression savings achieved. Decompression tools are provided free. The company charges only for compression capabilities.
- Subscription Licensing: License compliance checking occurs over encrypted TLS connections. Alternative arrangements possible according to client needs. Cloud edition features require separate licensing.
- Cloud Services: PetaSuite Cloud Edition enables streaming compression directly to/from cloud storage platforms with transparent integration.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | PetaSuite Standard |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | PetaSuite Cloud Edition |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | PetaSuite Protect |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free Trial |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels10 records
PetaGene product offering
Product offeringCore offering
PetaGene develops and licenses lossless compression software (PetaSuite) for genomic sequencing data files (BAM and FASTQ.gz), achieving 60-90% reductions in storage costs and data transfer times while preserving data integrity bit-for-bit. Its PetaLink virtual file layer makes the compressed data transparent to existing bioinformatics tools, requiring no pipeline modifications, and cloud, encryption, and audit capabilities are layered on as separate modules for genomic data management.
Product overview
PetaGene offers a suite of genomic data management products centered on lossless compression technology. The core offering is PetaSuite, available as standard on-premises software or as Cloud Edition for cloud integration. PetaSuite compresses BAM and FASTQ.gz genomic files by 60-90%, dramatically reducing storage costs and transfer times while preserving data integrity bit-for-bit. PetaLink, bundled with PetaSuite, provides transparent virtual file access so compressed data appears as original files to existing tools without decompression. FE Plus and BayesCal are enhancement features: FE Plus preserves all original quality score data in smaller footprints than standard CRAM, while BayesCal uses Bayesian refinement to improve both genotyping accuracy and compression ratios by 30-70%. PetaSuite Protect adds an encryption layer with FIPS 140-2 compliant AES-256 regional encryption, granular access controls, and cryptographic audit trails. The separate cunoFS product provides POSIX-compliant access to object storage. All products maintain full compatibility with community genomic standards (BAM, FASTQ, CRAM) and have been tested with major bioinformatics tools including GATK, BWA-MEM, Picard, and samtools.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- PetaSuite: Lossless compression software for BAM and FASTQ.gz genomic data files, achieving 60-90% storage cost and data transfer time reductions.
- PetaSuite Cloud Edition
- PetaSuite Protect
- PetaLink
- BayesCal
- cunoFS
- FE Plus
Products and services
- PetaSuite Lossless compression software for BAM and FASTQ.gz genomic data files, achieving 60-90% storage cost and transfer time reductions without compromising data quality. Includes command-line conversion tools and PetaLink for transparent virtual file access. Sold under multi-year software licenses to biopharma, clinical and research organizations.
- PetaSuite Cloud Edition Cloud-enabled version of PetaSuite that streams compressed BAM/FASTQ data directly to/from AWS S3, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud and other S3-compatible object stores. Provides up to 10x compression for GATK BAM files and up to 77% space savings for FASTQ.gz with no modification to existing pipelines.
- PetaSuite Protect Encryption, access management and auditing platform layered on PetaSuite that provides FIPS 140-2 compliant AES-256 regional encryption with fine-grained multi-level access permissions and a searchable cryptographic audit ledger for GDPR/HIPAA compliance use cases.
- cunoFS High-speed POSIX-compliant file system that provides native, unmodified, accelerated access to lower-cost object storage buckets across cloud and on-premises environments. Reduces reliance on expensive storage tiers without introducing bottlenecked file gateways and is sold as a separate product.
Quantifiable outcome
- 60-90% reduction in storage costs and data transfer times for BAM and FASTQ.gz files
- +5 more outcomes
Companies that use PetaGene
Customer profileNamed customers7 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
PetaGene technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration22 records
AI capability2 records
Feature8 records
PetaGene partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core, secondary and minor.
- NVIDIAcoreSeamless integration of PetaGene's PetaSuite tools as standard part of NVIDIA Clara Parabricks Pipelines. PetaGene's transparent compression reduces file sizes by 60-90% and enables Parabricks Pipelines GPU-accelerated genome analysis to run 29% faster. Joint free 30-day trial available combining Parabricks and PetaGene tools.
- Alliance Global (AGBL)coreExclusive distributor for Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. AGBL is a leading distributor of Illumina sequencing technology in the region with significant expertise in sequencing technology sales and the wider genomics marketplace. Growing national population-scale genomics initiatives in the region drive demand.
- Genique LifesciencescoreExclusive distributor agreement for India. Genique Lifesciences acts as the exclusive sales channel for PetaGene's genomic data compression software in the growing Indian market. Genique's founding team has extensive experience with distribution of Next Generation sequencers in India. Significant developments include India's Genome India project to sequence 10,000 citizens.
- Dell TechnologiessecondaryPartnership for healthcare podcast on NGS data management. Dell Technologies and PetaGene discussed how expanding NGS usage creates data explosion and how PetaGene addresses storage demands. Dell published white papers on genomic data compression with Dell EMC PowerScale.
- NetAppsecondaryAlliance Partner. NetApp is mentioned as a technology partner on PetaGene's customer and partner logo page.
- EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute)secondaryPetaGene originated from 'Project PetaGene', a collaboration with the Stegle Group at EMBL-EBI, researching how to compress genomic data without compromising quality.
- Entrepreneur FirstminorLondon-based startup incubator. PetaGene graduated with the program's sixth cohort in 2016 after taking their idea through the incubator.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
PetaGene competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- DNAnexus: Cloud genomics data management and analysis platform serving biopharma and clinical customers. Competes with PetaGene for genomic data infrastructure budgets, particularly where customers evaluate end-to-end platforms vs. point compression/management tools.
- Velsera (formerly Seven Bridges): Genomics data and analytics platform for pharma, clinical, and research customers. Overlaps with PetaGene on storage/management layers serving the same enterprise buyer set in NGS workflows.
- Lifebit: Genomics and biomedical data platform with a focus on federated analytics and clinical/research data management. Directly competes for enterprise genomics infrastructure dollars with cloud-native delivery.
- BC Platforms: Genomics and real-world data platform serving pharma, research, and clinical customers with data management and analytics. Comparable buyer profiles and use cases to PetaGene, especially in European healthcare and life sciences.
Broad incumbents
- Illumina DRAGEN: Illumina's secondary analysis platform includes built-in BAM/FASTQ compression and is sold as part of an integrated sequencer-to-report stack. Represents the largest incumbent risk as a vertically integrated alternative to standalone compression tools.
- AWS HealthOmics: AWS managed service for genomics and life sciences data storage and analysis. Bundled into a hyperscaler stack that competes on total cost of ownership against PetaGene's compression pricing model.
Emerging players
- GenomSys: Swiss company developing MPEG-G, a genomic data compression and transport standard. Direct technical adjacency to PetaGene's compression category and the most credible open-standard-aligned competitor.
- Seqera (Nextflow): Workflow orchestration platform for genomics and other data-intensive pipelines. Overlaps with PetaGene where customers evaluate pipeline-level data handling vs. point compression, and is increasingly embedded in cloud genomics stacks.
- Partek: Bioinformatics software for genomic and multi-omic data analysis. Targets overlapping research and translational buyer segments where storage/analysis decisions are made jointly.
- Basepair: Cloud-based NGS analysis platform with emphasis on fast, on-demand pipelines. Competes with PetaGene in research and clinical segments where pipeline simplicity and integrated analysis are deciding factors.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
PetaGene social profiles
Digital presencePetaGene compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance3 records
PetaGene financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
PetaGene leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
PetaGene funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds7 records
Investors4 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
PetaGene M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about PetaGene
What does PetaGene do?
PetaGene develops and licenses lossless compression software (PetaSuite) for genomic sequencing data files (BAM and FASTQ.gz), achieving 60-90% reductions in storage costs and data transfer times while preserving data integrity bit-for-bit. Its PetaLink virtual file layer makes the compressed data transparent to existing bioinformatics tools, requiring no pipeline modifications, and cloud, encryption, and audit capabilities are layered on as separate modules for genomic data management.
Is PetaGene a public or private company?
PetaGene is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was PetaGene founded?
PetaGene was founded in 2016. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is PetaGene based?
PetaGene is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does PetaGene make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Software Licenses are the primary driver. The others are subscription Licensing and cloud Services.
Who are PetaGene's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are DNAnexus, Velsera (formerly Seven Bridges), Lifebit and BC Platforms. Broad incumbents are Illumina DRAGEN and AWS HealthOmics. Emerging players are GenomSys, Seqera (Nextflow), Partek and Basepair.
Does PetaGene have an API?
No public API is recorded for PetaGene.
What industry is PetaGene in?
PetaGene's product category is Genomic Data Compression Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAGADAF, Molecular & Genetic Testing (PCR/NGS/qPCR). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.