Bayer Crop Science and Ginkgo Bioworks Create Joint Venture

Bayer and Ginkgo, a startup which genetically engineers microbes for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries with USD429m in funding, announced the partnership in September 2017.

The partners, along with hedge fund Viking Global Investors, are collectively investing USD100m in the venture, making it the second largest deal from an ag biotechnology startup in 2017, according to AgFunder data.

Joyn Bio will be helmed by Mike Miille, an industry veteran who came to the company from biologicals startup Agraquest, which was acquired by Bayer in 2012. For the last four years, Miille has served as head of strategy and business management for biologicals at Bayer Crop Science. He has also been working with Leaps by Bayer and Ginkgo for the past 18 months to put together this deal. He took over as CEO of Joyn Bio in October 2017.

Joyn Bio is the fifth investment of Leaps by Bayer, a unit of Bayer investing in the solutions to some of today’s biggest problems. Previous Leaps investments include CRISPR technology Casebia and stem cell tech startup BlueRock Therapeutics.

The new company will manufacture microbial products using synthetic biology, to reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers that farmers need to apply to crops. Miille says that Bayer’s know-how combined with Ginkgo’s manufacturing capabilities will allow the company to produce biologicals at 50- to 100-times the strength of products currently available on the market.

“People are basically using microbes as they find them. We can now go in with sequencing, using a similar discovery mechanism to pharma, and select microbes that optimize what we’re looking for,” said Miille. “We can create microbes that are going to have unprecedented levels of performance relative to the natural approach that folks have been going about for ten years.”

Joyn Bio’s first products are likely to be seed treatments focusing on nitrogen fixation. Joyn Bio’s products will not be exclusive to Bayer, and Miille said that the JV would function much like any other independent startup in terms of distribution.

The new venture is taking on assets from both Bayer and Ginkgo. Bayer has transferred its strain library of more than 100,000 proprietary microbial strains to Joyn Bio, while Ginkgo is granting the new venture full access to its 20,000 sq. ft. of Ginkgo’s Boston foundry, where Joyn Bio will be headquartered. Miille and a small team will be based in West Sacramento where they will have access to testing fields and greenhouses.