(Source: Fortune)
According to foreign media reports, the Japanese telecommunications network giant SoftBank recently spent $130 million on Zymergen, a bioengineering startup in Silicon Valley that produces "microbial designers." After this round of financing, Nobel winner Steven Chu and Softbank Investment Group director Deep Nishar will join the company's board of directors.
What is this company in the end?
Although only three years after its founding, Zymergen is already one of the new generation companies that use advanced technology to enhance bioengineering. It is dedicated to the development of genetically engineered microorganisms for use in industrial fermentation processes, which are described as using genetically engineered bacteria that have been selected for elimination.
In addition, Zymergen combines machine learning with automated analysis and bioinformatics processes. The company hopes to be able to use microbiology and machine learning technology to create more low-energy cleansing products and redesign the microbial genetic makeup to obtain enhanced microbes for use in existing industrial processes, including the production of generic drugs.
Why does Zymergen pay so much attention to microbial research? Take yeast for example. These microbes are the most abundant chemical plants on Earth. When the carbon they consume (usually, in the form of a sugar) passes through a process called fermentation, its form changes dramatically. Zymergen will reprogram the DNA genomes of these large numbers of microorganisms and use them as microscopic “biofactories†to produce valuable raw materials. Then, these ingredients can be put into commercial use.
Another unique feature of Zymergen is that its process of creating these microorganisms is automated. The company’s employees also include a large number of robots that stir biological fluids in a petri dish while human scientists supervise thousands of robots. Zymergen extracts data from these microbiological experiments and then uses a specific algorithm, through millions of different combinations of genes, to guide experiments and develop the best chemical products.
Zymergen CEO Joshua Hoffman explained that the combination of robots and microbes has greatly improved production efficiency and created wealth for many of the company's customers.
"With the help of robots, companies do not need to spend a lot of energy on repeated experiments, which saves us a lot of costs." He said.
Hoffman declined to disclose the name of the company that recently used Zymergen technology, nor did it explain the company’s profit figures. He simply stated that Zymergen's earnings are rising "substantively."
"In fact, we have been profitable since our first year of establishment." Hoffman is confident about the company's prospects.
Deep Nishar, head of Softbank’s newly formed investment group, said that microbe genetic editing can eventually be used to create new materials, such as the development of adhesives or flexible electronic devices that can produce electronic products that will fall from high altitudes without breaking.
Dr. Steven Chu, who just won the Nobel Prize, said: “Finding better ways to edit genomes is crucial for modern science.†And Zymergen's calculations “opened a new type of chemistry.â€
However, Zymergen also faces competition challenges from Ginkgo Bioworks. The company also cooperates with large companies and uses microbiology to create new materials for customers. Gingko BioWorks, headquartered in Boston, has just completed a $100 million financing in June of this year.
Via fortune
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