Ginkgo Goes Public in Merger Deal

Ginkgo Bioworks and Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company or SPAC, have agreed to a business combination that will result in Ginkgo becoming a publicly-listed company. The transaction implies a pre-money equity valuation for Ginkgo of $15.0 billion, and is expected to provide up to $2.5 billion of gross cash proceeds. Eagle Equity Partners is co-sponsoring the transaction with Bellco Capital, led by Dr. Arie Belldegrun. Dr. Belldegrun is a leader in the field of cell and gene therapy and founder of Kite Pharma and Allogene Therapeutics.

“The magic of biology is that cells run on digital code similar to a computer, except that instead of 0s and 1s it’s As, Ts, Cs, and Gs,” said Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo. “Ginkgo’s platform makes it easier to program this code, and we are making this platform available to organizations working to solve our most pressing problems. From mRNA vaccines reaching people’s arms to combating climate change, the opportunity to work with programmed cells has never been more apparent. We are thrilled to partner with Arie as well as the team at Soaring Eagle to bring this vision to life.”

Ginkgo serves enterprise customers spanning 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 as well as value share in the form of royalties from products that go to market or equity in the partner company. Today, industry sources estimate companies spend approximately $40 billion per year on biotech R&D work, work that could be supported by Ginkgo’s platform. Additionally, a recent McKinsey Global Institute report estimated that the overall market for bioengineered products from which Ginkgo could receive a value share is estimated to reach $2 to $4 trillion in the next 10 to 20 years. (Source: Gingko Bioworks Website, 11 May, 2021)