DNA

Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. is a biotechnology company operating a horizontal platform for cell programming, providing services and infrastructure for genetic engineering and fermentation. The company offers cell engineering services helping customers across pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, agriculture, food ingredients, and consumer products develop organisms producing target molecules. Ginkgo operates foundries equipped with automation, robotics, and software for DNA assembly, strain engineering, and fermentation at scale. The company pursues partnerships with customers including pharmaceutical companies, industrial biotechnology firms, and others requiring engineered organisms. Founded in 2008 by MIT scientists and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Ginkgo went public through SPAC merger in 2021 at a substantial valuation. The company aims to make biology easier to engineer through its platform approach. Ginkgo faces challenges including limited revenues, cash burn, profitability timeline uncertainties, customer concentration, competition from internal capabilities and other biotech firms, and skepticism about its platform economics. The company continues to pursue partnerships, expand capabilities, invest in automation and AI, and work toward demonstrating sustainable unit economics and growth.