Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. is an American biotech company founded in 2008 by five scientists from MIT, headed by Jason Kelly. The company specializes in using genetic engineering to produce bacteria with industrial applications for other biotech companies, saving other companies the cost of reproducing the initial stages of design in synthetic biology. The self-proclaimed "Organism Company" was one of the world's largest privately held biotech companies, valued at $4.2 billion in 2019. It raised $290 million in September and $350 million in October of that year. Ginkgo Bioworks went public on the New York Stock Exchange via a SPAC merger on September 17, 2021.
