Nanosphere was founded in 2000 by Northwestern University professors Chad Mirkin, Ph.D., and Robert Letsinger, Ph.D. to commercialize the research done at Northwestern University. The company is venture capital-backed and raised $15 million in a third financing round in 2002/2003 from several investors including Lurie Investments, NextGen Partners and Takara Bio. The company is headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. The company's mission is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of disease by enabling earlier access to, and detection of, new and existing biomarkers. The company is now a fully-integrated diagnostics company with established cGMP manufacturing operations, leading edge research and development teams, and veteran customer service and support teams.