On-Q-ity
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
On-Q-ity, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, was a next-generation oncology diagnostics company formed in 2009 by the merger of CELLective DX and The DNA Repair Co. Led by CEO Mara Aspinall, it developed biomarker-based diagnostics and a circulating tumor cell (CTC) platform aimed at predicting cancer treatment effectiveness and monitoring patient response in real time.
02 / On-Q-ity FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
On-Q-ity failed on both technical and financial fronts. It burned through about $15.6 million of its $26 million Series A in a futile bid to develop DNA repair biomarkers, leaving too little capital to pivot toward its CTC technology. With no successful products and unable to raise further funding after the 2008-era financing drought that had already killed its predecessors' Series B rounds, the board wound the company down after about three years.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded with $21M Series A
On-Q-ity was formed by merging CELLective DX and The DNA Repair Co., and closed a $21 million Series A led by MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures with Bessemer Venture Partners, Physic Ventures and Northgate Capital, under CEO Mara Aspinall.
- Series A extended to $26M
On-Q-ity ended 2009 with $26 million in Series A financing, one of the largest diagnostics financings of the year, and was named one of The Boston Globe's top five startups to watch in 2010.
- Series B and new CEO
The company added $5 million in Series B financing from existing investors and appointed Michael Stocum as CEO; its C5 chip product showed early CTC capture results.
- Folded
After three years and about $32 million raised, On-Q-ity quietly folded. Board member Bruce Booth of Atlas Ventures wrote that the company had burned some $15.6 million of the Series A on DNA repair biomarkers, leaving too little to fund a pivot to CTC technology.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On-Q-ity spent roughly $15.6 million of its $26 million Series A developing DNA repair biomarkers that never reached the market.
- 02
With the remaining funds insufficient for a pivot to circulating tumor cell technology, the board decided to wind the company down in 2012 rather than raise a new round.
- 03
No public loss figure was disclosed; the $15.6 million was spent investment capital, not a reported loss.