Singapore: Biomatters, which is known for developing the Geneious Pro, won the Microsoft Hi-Tech Emerging Company Award at the 2012 NZ Hi-Tech Awards.

Dr Brett Ammundsen, director and CEO, and Ms Quentin Christie, COO and senior vice president, global business operations accepted the award on behalf of Biomatters. "This award is a celebration of Biomatters' growth trajectory. It recognizes how far the company has come and the potential for further success as we continue to expand our products and customer applications in the rapidly developing field of genomics, driven by the adoption of next-generation sequencing technologies," said Dr Ammundsen.

The panel that judged this year's awards, included several eminent individuals such as Mr Peter Thiel, original Facebook investor and Paypal founder; Mr Craig Nevill-Manning, director, engineering, Google New York; Mr Howard Charney, senior vice president, Cisco.

Geneious Pro, which is the firm's flagship product, is one of the most frequently cited commercial software packages for DNA sequence-based research and is used in over 2,500 universities, institutes and commercial companies in more than 80 countries.