USA – Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston, MA-based platform to program cells, and Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SRNG), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, have agreed to a business combination that will result in Ginkgo becoming a publicly-listed company.
The combination values Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. at a $15 billion pre-money equity valuation and is expected to provide up to $2.5 billion of primary proceeds.Institutional investors have committed $775m in a 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 are also participating.Eagle Equity Partners is co-sponsoring the transaction with Bellco Capital, led by Dr. Arie Belldegrun, a leader in the field of cell and gene therapy and founder of Kite Pharma and Allogene Therapeutics, and both co-sponsors are also investing in the PIPE.Dr. Belldegrun will join the board of directors along with Harry Sloan, the CEO of Soaring Eagle. Current independent directors of Ginkgo, including Marijn Dekkers, Christian Henry, and Shyam Sankar, will join the board of directors of the combined company.Led by Jason Kelly, CEO, and Reshma Shetty, President/COO, who will continue to lead the combined company post-closing and also serve on the board of directors, Ginkgo is building a platform to program cells across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals. The platform leverages advanced robotic automation, proprietary software, and data analytics to continuously improve the technology as well as the knowledge and re-usable biological assets required to engineer biology.The company expects to generate $150 million of revenue in 2021, representing approximately 96% growth from 2020.11/05/2021
