On Jun. 25, 2013, NanoString Technologies launched an initial public offering at $10.00 per share and raised $54 million in net proceeds. The company had 141 employees as of May 31, 2013. NanoString Technologies was incorporated in Seattle as a spin-off from the Institute for Systems Biology by Krassen Dimitrov, Amber Ratcliffe, and Dwayne Dunaway.

NanoString was engaged in the detection, identification and quantification of individual target molecules in a biological sample by attaching a color coded fluorescent reporter to each target molecule of interest. The Company marketed its nCounter Analysis System to academic, government and biopharmaceutical and clinical laboratory customers.