[HN Gopher] Ginkgo Bioworks (YC S14) is going public today ___________________________________________________________________ Ginkgo Bioworks (YC S14) is going public today Author : todsacerdoti Score : 108 points Date : 2021-09-17 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.ycombinator.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.ycombinator.com) | tito wrote: | If anyone will enable the world to engineer biology, it's Gingko. | | Their team has built a platform for biological engineering since | day 1. | | This is the summary: | | * platform for engineering biology (unfair advantage is they've | taken this "not a product company" approach since 2009) | | * investing up the ecosystem by taking upside in products they | engineer for larger companies (not sure if they have an unfair | advantage here besides creative financing and momentum, IPO helps | with that) | | * investing downstream into startups by providing their platform | in exchange for equity (YCbio partnership seems like an unfair | advantage here) | | * mindshare of new minds (iGEM itself is a breeding ground for | future synbio employees and leaders who dream of joining Ginkgo, | Ginkgo founders co-created iGEM) | | Pretty perfect flywheel right there, even if it risks being a | spaghetti monster from a corporate structure and cashflow | standpoint. | | So cool to see this finally coming to light as an IPO. While I | don't understand the SPAC benefits, Ginkgo's structure to be able | to invest resources into synbio startups in an equity exchange | sets them up really well for future cashflow even if the present | is not. | | (Disclosure Ginkgo bought lab equipment from me in the early | days, and I just bought their stock today) | https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/2009/09/01/pearl-biotech-open... | neural_thing wrote: | I sold my Ginkgo today. I like the company but... Most of their | revenue is stock in affiliated companies. I don't think they | have a real business today, and the valuation is insane. | | Amyris actually has a synthetic biology business. It's less | flashy but it's real. | Kiro wrote: | How come you had Ginkgo stocks? | neural_thing wrote: | I bought shares in the SPAC a few weeks ago, expected a | jump on the IPO news, it worked out. | subrat_rout wrote: | How do you buy shares in the SPAC? Is there a minimum | amount? Which platform can I use to buy shares in the | SPAC? | neural_thing wrote: | SPACs are publicly traded. The announcement that Soaring | Eagle was taking Ginkgo public was made in May. | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ginkgo-bioworks- | to-... | | No special access is needed to trade SPACs, just need to | follow the news. That being said, I think that most SPACs | are pretty bad deals. | [deleted] | fouc wrote: | synbio.. wow, talk about flashbacks to genetic hacking cyber | punk scifi | murgindrag wrote: | Serious question: How does YC work with companies like this? | | It seems like a YC standard-form offer doesn't make any sense to | a company like Ginko at the stage it entered YC. | ArtWomb wrote: | Congrats! Great to see this from inception in 2014 to news | recently that they work with Moderna to scale synthetic DNA | vaccine production to global demand. I like Part Deux of their | revenue stream: royalties. Taking equity stakes in spin off bio- | engineered consumer products. And the best part for a biotech | startup, faster regulatory approval than pharma ;) | petra wrote: | An interesting story about this from MIT technology review | :https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/0... | g10r wrote: | Here's one of their more recent decks if anyone is interested: | https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/20... | djhn wrote: | Is there any centralised place for finding interesting decks? | | You'd think there would be a prolific Discord or telegram | channel publishing interesting public or quasi-public | documents? | g10r wrote: | Probably not...I just came across it as part of my diligence | before investing. Originally found on Twitter. | tlrobinson wrote: | Congrats! The 7th YC company to IPO: | https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/ | adrr wrote: | News says it was a SPAC and not an IPO. | dannykwells wrote: | Wow - YC has been around for 15 years and only 7 IPOs. That is | an interesting track record. | jy1 wrote: | Also consider that YC at the start had few companies per | batch. Also a tonne of large acquisitions. | marc__1 wrote: | That is very unfair. | | VC is a long-term business, with the _average_ time from | founding to IPO ranging from 8-10 years depending on the | year. If you look closer at this list, you 'll see companies | about to IPO (Amplitude, Relativity Space, Embark Trucks) and | several multi-billion dollar exits (e.g Segment <> Twilio, | Twitch <> Amazon). | | Lastly, the business is all about power law, so these small | exits outperform the remaining portfolio by orders of | magnitude. I bet they are beyond excited with their returns. | kilroy123 wrote: | I'm currently looking seriously at creating a synthetic biology | software startup. Like a poor mans ginkgo. | | These guys are MASSIVE in the space. Think Google back in the | day. | | I predict this will be a hot stock. | | Edit: if you're also interested in starting synthetic biology | startup please get in touch. | cybernautique wrote: | I'm interested, but in the it's-something-I-aspire-to-some-day- | when-I'm-not-so-incompetent sense. However! I'd love to engage | with you to hear about what's up! Is your inbox open to general | curiosity, or would you rather keep emails limited to serious | takers currently? | kilroy123 wrote: | Happy to chat with anyone. :) | cinntaile wrote: | At this point they're massively overvalued if you ask me, that | seems to be the case for every synthetic biology company but | this one takes the cake. | kilroy123 wrote: | I totally agree, but it seems like everything with a good | story is overvalued these days. | koeng wrote: | I'm a major contributor to a synbio software package | https://github.com/TimothyStiles/poly and I also do quite a lot | of robotics in the space (have a full DNA foundry running in my | house, that took a lot of software). | | Already starting something in the space, but I'd be happy to | talk! | agumonkey wrote: | Ha Tom knight is back | jc_811 wrote: | I noticed they went public via SPAC, which, as an investor, | screams red flag and scares me. | | Can anyone shed light on why they would go this route? Is it | accurate to say best case is because they wanted less hassle / | quicker to market and worst case is that their financials/books | are a disaster and they didn't want anyone looking too closely | before the founders raised money and cashed out? | | Genuinely curious and would appreciate any insightful replies | jy1 wrote: | Regular bankers dont want to IPO hard tech companies. SPACs are | great for hard tech with future revenues. | Kiro wrote: | Isn't a SPAC just an empty shell? Why would they want to IPO | that? | jy1 wrote: | The SPAC sponsors burden the risk, not the bankers. | jc_811 wrote: | What exactly is a "hard tech" company? And is this a recent | change? Tech companies have been going public without issues | for years until the last ~24 months when SPACs exploded (and | mostly churn out negative returns after the initial pop [1]) | | Isn't a standard IPO also great for a tech company with | future revenues as long as you believe in your business and | future prospect? | | Really trying to wrap my head around why a company would do | this, and also why this isn't a huge red flag as well | | [1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberg-law- | analysis/analysi... | jy1 wrote: | It's not "hard tech" per se. Rather it's companies that are | (essentially) pre-revenue and/or pre-product. | | E.g. Ginko did $100m in rev in 2021 and is at a 20B market | cap. | | Why would a company do this? Simple: Money. Spac sponsors | "guarantee" a ~20B market cap. Investment bankers in a | regular IPO might offer $4-5B (still 50x sales). | | So what's the difference? Spac sponsors are willing to take | "venture" style risk, and traditional IPO underwriters are | not. | sjg007 wrote: | Umm. Spac management can "sell out" and gets coupons to | buy stock so.. Does the SEC require the target company or | the acquisition company file something akin to an S1 | filing for the target company or ? | bpodgursky wrote: | The market cap is $2.5B, not $20B. | | https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/ginkgo-begins-trading-on- | the... | jy1 wrote: | That link is wrong. It's closer to $20b. https://www.bloo | mberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/ginkgo-sa... | [deleted] | jy1 wrote: | Another way to think about this is: Traditional IPO | underwrites are fairly risk adverse. They will value | "high risk" companies in certain ways. E.g. How would you | value a self driving company with 0 revenue? For bankers? | pretty conservatively. | | However the "market" has people that can and will value | these companies more than IPO underwriters. Spac sponsors | are essentially glorified "venture" style investments, | that also happen to take the company public (and take a | fairly large cut in return). | | An alternative might be to have a "direct listing" | without underwriters, however companies are unable to | raise funds in a direct listing. | neural_thing wrote: | Most of the answers here are wrong. The real reason is that | when companies go public through a regular IPO, they can't show | projected financials, only actual results. | | Ginkgo has poor results so far, but huge projections, which a | fair number of people believe. So, SPAC. | neural_thing wrote: | See this for example - https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/wp- | content/uploads/2021/05/Gi... They had 18% revenue growth in | 2020 but project 75%+ revenue growth through 2025. If you do | a regular IPO, you can't post numbers like this | kharak wrote: | I don't really understand SPACs. Is there a good article | explaining what they do and why you take them instead of going | public directly. And what happens to those SPAC shares now if | you bought some? | fsn4dN69ey wrote: | Plenty of material on SPACs online, but per your question, | the shares of the spac (SRNG) convert to the target (DNA). If | you had units (SRNGU), you also got 1 share (DNA) + 1/5 | warrant (DNA.W) per unit. | g10r wrote: | Was nice to have the ability to buy into SRNG early. This | is more or less restricted to most through a traditional | IPO. | [deleted] | irq-1 wrote: | That does seem bad. | | https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-and-bulletins/what-... | | > If you invest in a SPAC at the IPO stage, you are relying on | the management team that formed the SPAC, often referred to as | the sponsor(s), as the SPAC looks to acquire or combine with an | operating company. That acquisition or combination is known as | the initial business combination. A SPAC may identify in its | IPO prospectus a specific industry or business that it will | target as it seeks to combine with an operating company, but it | is not obligated to pursue a target in the identified industry. | g10r wrote: | It's not bad per se, it's just how it works. Like pretty much | everything in life the outcome is dependent on the people | involved. You're not getting the potential for more upside | without the introduction of more risk. | | Chamath is currently leading four biotech SPACS: DNAA, DNAB, | DNAC and DNAD, each with a stated target, neurology, | oncology, organs & immunology. Anyone looking to invest in | the SPAC today should consider the likelihood of this | happening, the potential targets, and the sponsors history. | | Or you can wait for an announcement around a proposed merger, | even up to the day the official stock starts being traded. | | Again, just depends on risk tolerance. It's nice to least | have the option to take part in these deals. | gingkoguy wrote: | They are a great company and could have gone traditional IPO. | However, with going SPAC they were able to bring 2 billion | dollars into a company with super high valuation. They make | less than 50mil and we're valued at 18 to 20 billion. So don't | buy in now, you will have plenty of chance to buy this great | company | | Edit: Also just to add on by bringing in that 2 Billion dollars | they have essentially secured the future of the company for a | long time | bpodgursky wrote: | SPACs are a great way to not have to hemorrhage IPO money to | wall street bank cartels, and to lose billions w/ undervalued | IPOs. I'm not sure what you're on about. | dang wrote: | Please omit swipes from your posts to HN. Your comment would | be fine without that last bit. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | mmiyer wrote: | Their books don't look that good per this article: | https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/24/1032308/is-ginkg... | lr wrote: | Robinhood currently has the Genentech description attached to | Ginko Bioworks (DNA)! | skosuri wrote: | Congrats @jrkelly and team! Exciting day for synthetic biology, | and love the pictures of the NYSE: | https://twitter.com/Ginkgo/status/1438837881649381377?s=20 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-17 23:00 UTC)