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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Ginkgo Bioworks Finances Foundry With $1 Million Emerging Technology Loan From MassDevelopment

03/19/2015
MassDevelopment issued a $1 million term loan from the Emerging Technology Fund to Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. to help the organisms engineering company finance expansion and equipment for a foundry at its Seaport Innovation District headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

The company currently leases 11,565 square feet of space for its beta foundry and offices and will lease an additional 6,785 square feet of space in the same facility for its new Foundry Bioworks1. Ginkgo expects to create 21 jobs as a result of this transaction.

“Massachusetts is a leader in science and technology, and Ginkgo Bioworks’s expansion represents a prime example of how creative entrepreneurship can thrive in the Commonwealth,” said MassDevelopment President/CEO Marty Jones. “MassDevelopment is pleased that the Emerging Technology Fund can help this innovative company grow in Massachusetts.”

Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. is a private company that has built a unique foundry to engineer organisms for the flavor and fragrance markets. These organisms produce ingredients via fermentation that help to create the flavors and fragrances found in consumer products, perfumes, food, and cosmetics. Ginkgo Bioworks engineers organisms that produce cultured ingredients, enabling customers to take that organism, ramp it into production, and meet the demand for the cultured ingredient.

“We are thrilled to be expanding our presence in Boston with the opening of our new Foundry Bioworks1. Through the support from MassDevelopment, this new facility will allow us to significantly expand capacity to design and manufacture organisms to spec for customers seeking access to cultured ingredients,” said Reshma Shetty, Co-Founder at Ginkgo Bioworks.

The company’s foundry employs proprietary software, hardware, robotics, measurement, analytic, and data systems that streamline the design, construction, and testing of engineered organisms to produce cultured ingredients. With this technology, Ginkgo Bioworks builds and delivers more organisms in parallel than can be done by hand in a conventional lab setting.

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