Last week we shared with you a framework for a rising technology wave \u2014 we called it Digital Biology, the convergence of digital and biological technology waves that is changing genetics from an artisan\u2019s niche into a branch of information technology.<\/p>\n
More evidence of the power of the Digital Biology wave arrives this week with news that Ginkgo\u00a0BioWorks will close a round of $275 million in additional funding including investors such as\u00a0Viking Global, Y-Combinator\u2019s Continuity Fund and Bill Gates\u2019 Cascade Investment.<\/p>\n
This brings the company\u2019s total funding to $429 million, and we hear scuttlebutt that Ginkgo\u2019s valuation has risen to over $1 billion.<\/p>\n
The attention will go to the staggering \u201chow much\u201d and the \u201cwho\u201d, but spare a thought for the \u201cwhat\u201d this buys and the \u201cwhyfore\u201d that\u2019s driving it. Namely, the BioWorks3 hub that will take biology into its Manufacturing Age and out of the medieval turf of artisans and alchemists. This is Industrial Sorcery as we see what we can do to accelerate the re-engineering of the codes of life that power these microbes that will, in turn, fuel, feed, clothe and heal us.<\/p>\n
Infotech investors veering into Digital Biology\u2019s turf
\nIn Digital Biology we are also beginnignt to see investors coming over from traditinoal digital information technology and making big, long term bets on biology as the new \u201cit\u201d technology.<\/p>\n
Why? Biotech is an increasingly popular, more innovative and sustainable way of rethinking traditional manufacturing processes. Large, public companies in practically every industry are starting to test, or invest in biology-driven tech.<\/p>\n
The use of the proceeds
\nThe new funding will be used to accelerate Ginkgo\u2019s expansions to new markets, scale existing projects, and support work in its third organism foundry, Bioworks3, which opens this week. Ginkgo\u2019s foundries leverage advanced technology to automate the highly manual processes typically required in organism design. The space and technology afforded by Bioworks3 will further accelerate Ginkgo\u2019s ability to bring designs to scale, and support work on Ginkgo\u2019s first foray into agriculture through a $100M joint venture with Bayer.<\/p>\n
The Ginkgo backstory
\nGinkgo designs and prints DNA, the digital code that underlies all living things. With the tools in its foundries, Ginkgo can design this living code to build custom microorganisms for customers in a wide range of industries. Its work includes everything from yeasts that produce fragrance and flavor ingredients to bacteria that can decrease farmers\u2019 reliance on chemical fertilizers to living medicines that work with the body to cure disease.<\/p>\n
The Digital Biology Technology Wave and Ginkgo\u2019s Center-of-the-Universe position
\n\u201cUnlike digital code, DNA code powers us,\u201d said Ginkgo CEO Jason Kelly. \u201cit is our food, our medicine, and increasingly, our technology. 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. So, we founded Ginkgo to make biology easier to engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s one way of organizing your thinking, visually, about the Digital Biology space.<\/p>\n
In September 2016, we reported on what we termed \u201cThe Rise of Organic Manufacturing\u201d and boted that Ginkgo, Amyris, Genomatica\u2019s circle of innovation is a trend to watch. We saw the innovation ring tightening here, and we saw the trend moving faster and faster here.<\/p>\n
We looked in October 2016 at Zymergen\u2019s progress and the investor interest pouring in from the digital economy following their epic $130M Series B capital raise in Zymergen gets Lit<\/p>\n
And we dubbed this emerging group of companies and their field Digital Biology last week when we reported on Arzeda\u2019s latest capital raise in \u201cThis is an algorithm, that is alive: The rise of Arzeda and Digital Biology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ginkgo\u2019s Big, Big Year
\nThe Series D and opening of Bioworks3 cap off a year of major expansion for Ginkgo.<\/p>\n
This year marked Ginkgo\u2019s acquisition of Gen9, a leading printer of synthetic DNA, a new $100M joint venture with Bayer to design fertilizer-producing microbes, new partnerships for work on food processing enzymes with Swissaustral and Kerry, and its first public project in the pharmaceutical industry with Synlogic. In October, the company announced a major supply agreement expansion, purchasing one billion base pairs of synthetic DNA from Twist Bioscience. This is the largest volume supply agreement in the industry and makes Ginkgo the largest designer of synthetic DNA, using it in the process of prototyping new designed organisms.<\/p>\n
The Bottom Line
\n\u201cGame-changer\u201d is a well-worn stock phrase applied too often to events which don\u2019t at the time, or enduringly, change the game. But we don;t see the convergence between the bioeconomy and the digital economy slowing down, turning back or downshifting in importance.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Silocon Valley may have just begun its investing into the most important software coding platform of all time: move over Objective-C, PHP, Javascript, Python, Ruby, and Unix \u2014 here comes the the language of DNA.<\/p>\n
And you are here to see it. Lucky you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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