Covaris Announces Growth Partnership with New Mountain Capital

Strategic Investment to Drive Accelerated Growth

WOBURN, Mass. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Covaris, Inc. (“Covaris” or “the Company”), a manufacturer of advanced tools enabling life science innovations, announced today that New Mountain Capital (“New Mountain”), a leading growth-oriented investment firm with over $35 billion in assets under management, has made a majority investment in the Company. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Covaris’ tools are central to multiple sample analysis technologies, including sequencing and proteomics. In sequencing, Covaris technology is the gold standard for sample preparation, DNA extraction and shearing. In this next phase of growth, Covaris and New Mountain will partner to extend the Company’s leadership in advanced sample preparation and biomolecule extraction technologies. Accelerated growth in life sciences and diagnostics is paving the way for a more robust understanding of multiple disease models. Covaris technology enables innovation in the space by improving the genomic and proteomic data gathered from cells, tissues and other materials. The Company will build on its market-leading technology to further cement its place as the preeminent sample prep platform for multiple discovery and analytical workflows.

Following the transaction, founder Jim Laugharn will continue to serve as CEO. Additionally, Chris O’Connell, a member of the New Mountain Executive Advisory Council and former President and CEO of Waters Corporation, will serve as Executive Chairman of Covaris.

“This is an exciting time for Covaris. The partnership with New Mountain allows us to expand our capabilities to help bring our technology to more customers, and help current customers get the most out of our platform,” said Jim Laugharn, Founder and CEO of Covaris. “New Mountain is an investor with a proven track record of growing innovative companies, with particular strength in life sciences, and is therefore the ideal partner for Covaris as we embark on this next growth stage.”

“Covaris is the clear leader in biomolecule extraction technology, and is ideally positioned to enable and accelerate the next generation of life sciences innovation in important areas like precision medicine,” said Andre Moura, Managing Director at New Mountain Capital and Lead Director of Covaris. “We look forward to providing strategic and financial resources to Covaris as we work closely with the entire team to accelerate the Company’s growth and deliver even more value to customers.”

“Covaris is a high-impact Company with a strong culture of innovation,” said Chris O’Connell, who serves on New Mountain Capital’s Executive Advisory Council and as Executive Chairman of Covaris. “I’m personally excited to support the Company and New Mountain Capital as we accelerate investment and broaden the Company’s impact on human health and well-being.”

BofA Securities served as exclusive financial advisor to Covaris on the transaction and Goodwin LLP served as legal advisor to Covaris. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal advisor to New Mountain.

About Covaris

Based in Woburn, MA, Covaris develops, manufactures and markets instruments, consumables, and reagents used in pre-analytical sample preparation for genomic and proteomic analysis to help accelerate the pace of research and life science innovations. Using proprietary technologies including focused acoustic energy, Covaris’ tools achieve highly accurate and reproducible results with the goal of empowering customers to make new discoveries, develop new assays and improve bioanalytical results. Some of the non-contact applications include faster automated DNA fragmentation, cell lysis, accelerated binding partner mixing, bead resuspension, and compound formulation.

Additional information about Covaris, LLC is available at www.covaris.com.

About New Mountain Capital

New Mountain Capital is a New York-based investment firm that emphasizes business building and growth, rather than debt, as it pursues long-term capital appreciation. The firm currently manages private equity, credit, net lease real estate and public equity funds with over $35 billion in assets under management. New Mountain seeks out what it believes to be the highest quality growth leaders in carefully selected industry sectors and then works intensively with management to build the value of these companies.

Additional information about New Mountain Capital is available at www.newmountaincapital.com.