Ginkgo Bioworks to Go Public With $1.63B in Proceeds From SPAC Merger

Original from: Genomeweb

Image Credit: GINKGO BIOWORKS TWITTER

Ginkgo Bioworks said on Tuesday that it has completed its merger with special purpose acquisition company Soaring Eagle Acquisition and that its stock will start to trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. 

The merger was approved in a shareholder vote held early on Tuesday, with 75 percent of shareholders participating and 97 percent voting in favor of the deal. Upon the closing of the merger, Ginkgo Bioworks expects to receive $1.63 billion in gross proceeds, including $775 million in committed funding from a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, and approximately $858 million from the Soaring Eagle trust account.

Ginkgo first announced its intention to merge with Soaring Eagle in order to go public in May. At the time, the planned transaction implied a $15.0 billion pre-money equity valuation for Ginkgo and was expected to provide up to $2.5 billion of gross cash proceeds. This included $1.73 billion of cash in trust from Soaring Eagle and $775 million in proceeds from a PIPE transaction priced at $10.00 per share of Class A common stock of Soaring Eagle.

In connection with the deal's closing, Soaring Eagle will now change its name to Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, and the combined company’s shares of Class A common stock and public warrants will trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbols DNA and DNA.WS, respectively.

Ginkgo said it is building a platform for cell programming that can be used by companies in numerous industries to find more effective, environmentally friendly ways to create products such as food ingredients, fragrances, cosmetics, and medicines. 

The company recently announced it had aided its partner Aldevron in making improvements in the production of a key material used in mRNA vaccine manufacturing and had worked with another partner, Cronos Group, on the commercial-scale production of the rare cannabinoid CBG. Ginkgo also launched Concentric by Ginkgo last year, a public health and biosecurity initiative to provide COVID-19 testing in schools across the US. 

In August, the company reported that its revenues for the first half of 2021 rose 180 percent year over year, including a 41 percent increase in its foundry business. Ginkgo's total revenues for the period increased to $88 million from $31 million, and revenues from its foundry business rose to $44 million from $31 million. The company also reported revenues of $44 million from its biosecurity business for the first half of the year, relative to its original projection for full-year revenues of $50 million. Given that unit's performance in H1 2021, Ginkgo said it now expects revenues from the biosecurity business to be at least $75 million for the full year.

"Ginkgo seeks to make programming the DNA of cells as easy as programming computers. Our platform benefits from scale, and the proceeds from this transaction will help Ginkgo expand our platform to better serve our customers and become the industry standard across all biotechnology end-markets," Ginkgo cofounder and CEO Jason Kelly said in a statement.

Source: Ginkgo Bioworks to Go Public With $1.63B in Proceeds From SPAC Merger