INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ginkgo Bioworks is now worth $4 billion after a $290 million capital infusion that will give the company the cash to dramatically expand
its developer shop for genetic programming.The Boston-based company is one of a handful of United States -based early-stage companies that
materials, clothing, electronics, food, pharmaceuticals and more
The company sells its development services to anyone who comes in with an idea
entrepreneur wanted to develop houseplants that smelled like roses or lilies, they could approach Ginkgo, pay a (not-insignificant) fee and
Ginkgo would do the research into designing something like a lily-scented fern
(Kelly puts the sticker price on that kind of development somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million, so a founder best believe their
businesses that rely on its technology.Those take the form of joint ventures with companies like Bayer (the first joint venture partner for
Ginkgo) and the launch of Joyn, a $100 million spin-out that was created in the summer of 2018.The two companies are collaborating on the
associated with traditional chemical fertilizers.Since that first spin-out, Ginkgo has created three other companies and joint ventures
million in financing.*Alongside these large-scale initiatives, Ginkgo has signed partnerships with the West Coast powerhouse accelerator
program from Y Combinator and a new Boston-based life sciences-focused group called Petri to conduct development work for startups from
Of all of the people we can give value to, we can give the most to startups
earlier version of this article mentioned three company spinouts
