December 14, 2017

Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks announced it has raised a massive $275 million Series D – bringing the company’s total funding to $429 million to date. Included in the round were all previous investors in the company – Viking Global, Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, Cascade Investment, along with new investors that included global growth equity firm General Atlantic.

This round propels Ginkgo Bioworks into the category of being considered a ‘unicorn’, and makes the company one of a few biotech companies in Massachusetts valued at more than $1 billion.

Founded in 2008, and launched through Y Combinator two years ago, Ginkgo Bioworks originally operated on $15 million in federal defense funding. Over that ensuing years, the company developed a method of designing and printing DNA, creating custom microbes that can be applied to a number of industries including increasing crop yields and improving human health at a fraction of the cost of the same process being conducted by human scientists.

Ginkgo Biowork’s Series D announcement follow only months after the company announced its partnership with Bayer in September to create a new agtech company that will focus on the potential within beneficial biological-based microbes to make nitrogen more available to crops.

Operating from both Ginkgo Bioworks’ Boston headquarters and West Sacramento, Calif., office, where Bayer conducts its R&D activities testing plant biologics, the startup will target the identity and development of plant-based microbes that can help plants and soil fix nitrogen from the air or other alternative sources as a means to reduce the need to apply traditional nitrogen fertilizers in agricultural production.

The agreement also included a $100 million Series A investment round backed by the two parent companies and hedge fund Viking Global Investors LP to finance the as-yet unnamed company.

“Accessing the microbiome is part of Bayer’s innovation strategy,” said Kemal Malik, member of the Board of Management of Bayer AG and responsible for innovation, in September. “We are launching this enterprise to develop transformative agricultural products based on the latest synthetic biology technology. We have exclusively partnered with Ginkgo to build a leading player in this field.”

In July of last year the company  successfully raised a $100 million Series C backed by  Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, Senator Investment Group, Cascade Investment, Baillie Gifford, Viking Global Investors, and Allen & Company LLC, and in July 2015 raised a $45 million Series B led by Viking Global Partners, and including OS Fund, Y Combinator, and Felicis Ventures.

The capital from this latest Series D will help fund Bioworks3 – Ginkgo Bioworks’ new 18,000 square foot automated foundry located in the Seaport District of Boston, which brings the company’s total facility footprint to 70,000 square feet with 50 DNA designing robots.  This added capacity and funding will support the company as it works to expand into new markets as well as to scale up its existing projects.

“DNA is the code that will drive the next technological revolution, the way that digital code drove the revolution in information technology in the last half century,” said Jason Kelly, Ginkgo Bioworks CEO. “But unlike digital code, DNA code powers us – it is our food, our medicine, and increasingly, our technology. Our foundries are a platform that enable our partners to tap into the power of biology.”

Already this year Ginkgo Bioworks not only launched its joint venture with Bayer, but  announced its acquisition of synthetic DNA provider Gen9, announced partnerships with enzymatic producer Swissaustrall and taste and nutrition company Kerry, as well as an additional partnership with pharmaceutical company Synlogic. It also agreed to purchase one billion base pairs of synthetic DNA from Twist Bioscience, making Ginkgo Bioworks the largest designer of synthetic DNA in the world.

“We believe that Ginkgo’s outstanding team, technology, and business model position it well for continued growth,” said Dr. Michelle Dipp, managing director of General Atlantic. “We look forward to working closely with Jason and the entire Ginkgo team to support the company’s expansion into new industries and global markets.”

-Lynda Kiernan