Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite

There’s a growing wave of commercial activity from companies that are creating products using new biological engineering technologies.

Perhaps the most public (and tastiest) example of the promise biomanufacturing holds is Impossible Foods. The meat replacement company whose ground plants (and bioengineered additives) taste like ground beef just raised another $200 million earlier this month, giving the privately held company a $4 billion valuation.

But Impossible is only the most public face for what’s a growing trend in bioengineering — commercialization. Platform companies like Ginkgo Bioworks and Zymergen that have large libraries of metagenomic data that can be applied to products like industrial chemicals, coatings and films, pesticides and new ways to deliver nutrients to consumers.

The new products coming to market

In fact, by 2021 consumer products made with Zymergen’s bioengineered thin films should be appearing at the Consumer Electronics Show (if there is a Consumer Electronics Show). It’s one of several announcements this year from the billion dollar-valued startup.

In August, Zymergen announced that it was working with herbicide and pesticide manufacturer FMC in a partnership that will see the seven-year-old startup be an engine for product development at the nearly 130-year-old chemical company.

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