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Ginkgo encourages new biotech start-ups to take a step back in their technology, just as tech start-ups use Amazon Web Services to provide their core computing and data storage. Founded in 2018, Motif Foodworks is one of them. It makes ingredients for plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy and relies on Ginkgo to provide yeast strains that improve flavor or texture.
Ginkgo collects money in different ways depending on the client, including usage fees, royalties, and equity shares. Revenue from the foundry business increased 40 percent in the first half of 2021 and is expected to reach $100 million for the year. By the end of last year, Ginkgo labs had completed or were working on a total of 74 cell projects. This year alone, they’re on track to add 30 more.
“The business model is starting to prove itself,” said Mr Kelly.
In a filing for investors, Ginkgo said the foundry business should break even by 2024 or 2025, but that doesn’t include returns on equity investments and royalties that are starting to trickle.
Ginkgo is by all accounts an innovative leader in synthetic biology. “It embodies the field’s vision to industrialize biology,” said Mr Cumbers of SynBioBeta.
While ginkgo aims to automate vast areas of biology, the field is still largely handcrafted. Last year, nearly $33 billion was spent on cell engineering research by universities, government labs, biotech companies and large corporations around the world. More than 60 percent of the expenditure was for labor, the rest for equipment, reagents and other materials. The company says the workforce share for Ginkgo projects is about 30 percent.
The question is how much demand will there be for Ginkgo’s computer-style tech platform, and how soon. The company and its investors are betting the moment has come. Ginkgo is raising more than $1.6 billion to further expand its automated biology foundry by going public through a special purpose acquisition company.
The SPAC market has been fluctuating recently. But its investors are expressing their confidence that the deal, which is worth nearly $15 billion in Ginkgo, will be a good deal in the long run for both the company and its backers.
“The Ginkgo team has spent years developing this technology,” said Bill Ford, CEO of investment firm and Ginkgo supporter General Atlantic. “There’s a clue, and we’re in the infancy of synthetic biology.”
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