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Billerica, Massachusetts-based RainDance Technologies Inc secured $16.5 million for its Series E funding round extension, a statement about the financing said.

GE Ventures and Northgate Capital were the new investors for the genomics tools firm. The company's current financial backers also joined in the most recent round. With the latest proceeds, RainDance will be able to hasten the company's efforts in "commercial expansion and assay development" for their products RainDrop, ThunderStorm and ThunderBolts Cancer Panel. Its most recent innovation is ThunderBolts, a product that provides quick, simple and affordable sequencing profile of "somatic tumor mutations in molecular biopsies or biobanked samples," the statement said.

GE Ventures is the second strategic investor in RainDance. The first strategic investor was Myriad Genetics. Both strategic investors share the company's goal of speeding up product development commercialization to enhance patient care and save lives, the statement said.

RainDance President and Chief Executive Officer Roopom Banerjee said in the statement, "We welcome GE Ventures and Northgate as new investors. GE brings an unparalleled global network of businesses and partners, and is a logical outgrowth of the work we have under way with industry and research leaders committed to making the world healthier. Our success bringing in strategic investors such as GE Ventures and Myriad Genetics demonstrates we are a trusted platform partner to large customers in advancing the understanding, detection and monitoring of cancer and other important diseases."

To date, RainDance has already secured over $100 million from other backers. These include Mohr Davidow Ventures, Quaker BioVentures, Alloy Ventures, Acadia Woods Partners, Sectoral Asset Management, Northgate Capital and Capital Royalty Partners. Their investment also helped support RainDance's earlier initiatives, like the RainDrop Digital PCR System and its ThunderStorm System, the statement said.

GE Ventures and healthymagination Chief Executive Officer Sue Siegel said in the statement, "We have followed RainDance's progress for many years and are impressed with how the company's cutting edge technologies are advancing the market and helping to bring in a new era of more accurate, non-invasive and cost-efficient testing for complex genetic disease research."