On Monday, Gingko Bioworks, the cell programming platform that went public last week via a SPAC acquisition and calls itself “the organism company,” announced that it will buying Dutch DNA Biotech BV, a biotech firm based in Utrecht, Netherlands that develops fungal strains and fermentation processes for the production of proteins and organic acids. A purchase price for the acquisition, which will be executed through a combination of cash and equity and is expected to close in July, was not disclosed.
Gingko is a specialist in “engineered biology,” with a stated mission of someday making it as easy to program cells as to program computers. The company expects to generate $150 million in revenue this year, up 96 percent from 2020. Ginkgo serves enterprise customers across multiple end markets, enabling them to conduct cell programming R&D at scale on Ginkgo’s platform.
Ginkgo earns usage-based revenues for this work, along with value share from product royalties. Today, Gingko says, industry sources estimate that companies spend approximately $40 billion per year on biotech R&D work of the type that could be supported by Gingko’s platform.
Dutch DNA
Dutch DNA was established in 2015 as a management buy-out from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), a public applied scientific research facility founded in 1932. For the past 30 years, Dutch DNA (first under TNO, then as an independent entity) has developed and supplied fungal biotech processes for the industrial production of enzymes, proteins and organic acids. It has particular expertise in one class of efficient microbes–filamentous fungi–that have a wide range of applications, from laundry detergent to food proteins. Dutch DNA has developed unique filamentous fungal host strains that can be developed into highly efficient producers of various proteins and enzymes.
“Where software platforms lean on a codebase of Software Development Kits (SDKs), you can think of cell programming platforms using Cell Development Kits (CDKs) to enable new applications. Dutch DNA has the most exciting fungal “CDK” we have seen, and their work with filamentous fungi is truly differentiating. We believe their expertise in developing and engineering these strains, combined with Ginkgo’s automated and high-throughput Foundry, will help us provide best-in-class production hosts to our customers developing protein and enzyme products unlike anything currently available on the market. This technology could have applications across a wide range of industries, including more efficient and sustainable production of plant-based foods, low-energy laundry detergents, pharmaceutical manufacturing and more,” said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. “We are thrilled to welcome Dutch DNA and its talented team, and excited about what we can accomplish together.”
“This step creates an amazing opportunity to deploy Dutch DNA’s technology platform in a variety of market segments. We hope the combination of ‘conventional’ biotechnology with artificial intelligence and high throughput technologies will boost developments significantly. As founders we are extremely proud of our team, which proved our technology is compatible with the foundry of Ginkgo,” said Dutch DNA Founder Art de Boo. “Further, we are pleased that our company may serve as a stepping stone for Ginkgo to come to Europe and the Netherlands.”
Post-SPAC
This is the second business combination for Gingko Bioworks in as many weeks. Last week, the company went public on the Nasdaq Market via a SPAC acquisition by Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. The transaction valued Gingko at a $15 billion pre-money equity valuation, in a deal expected to provide up to $2.5 billion in primary proceeds. Institutional investors committed $775 million in an oversubscribed PIPE, with anchor investments from Baillie Gifford, Putnam Investments, and funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley Investment Management).
New investors, including accounts advised by ARK Investment Management LLC, ArrowMark Partners, Bain Capital Public Equity, Berkshire Partners, and Franklin Advisers also joined. Existing investors including Cascade Investment, Casdin Capital, General Atlantic, Senator Investment Group, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and Viking Global Investors also participated.
Earlier this year, Gingko entered a multi-year deal with listed Indiana agriculture seed company Corteva Agriscience to develop crop protein technologies that protect against invasive pests.
