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Berkeley Lights (PhenomeX)

Biotech tools / lab automationUSA
New to Unitard
🤝 Acquired
Peak $5 BillionToday
~-98%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    2020
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $5 Billion ’20
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    2022
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    ~$100M
Current status
Acquired by Bruker for ~$108M ($1.00/share) in Oct 2023 after merging with IsoPlexis to form PhenomeX.

The rise & fall

8 moments · 2011–2023

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2011
Founded in the East Bay
Optofluidic chips use beams of light to herd and analyze single cells for drug discovery.
Wikipedia
Jul 2020
IPO at $22 — instant unicorn
The July 2020 listing is a sensation and the valuation clears $1B on debut.
GenomeWeb
Dec 2020
The peak: $103 a share$5B
Five months after listing, the stock hits $103 and the market value tops $5B.
GenomeWeb
2021
A short-seller takes aim
A report alleges misleading claims about the platform; a shareholder class action follows and the stock slides.
GenomeWeb
2022
Slips out of the club
The rout in unprofitable biotech-tools stocks does the rest.
Macrotrends
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–23
Glassdoor reviews from the decline praised the science while faulting the lack of a clear commercial direction; employees described constant reorganizations, shifting managers, and repeated layoffs that wore on morale.
2023
Becomes PhenomeX
Merges with fellow fallen tools maker IsoPlexis and rebrands.
GenomeWeb
Oct 2023
Acquired by Bruker for ~$108M$108M
$1.00 a share — about a penny on the dollar from the December 2020 peak.
SEC filing

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Berkeley Lights sold pricey lab platforms that use light to manipulate and analyze single cells for drug discovery, and its July 2020 IPO turned into a sensation — shares ran from $22 to $103 by December, valuing it above $5B.

A 2021 short-seller report alleging misleading claims, plus a brutal market for unprofitable biotech-tools companies, sent the stock into freefall. The company merged with IsoPlexis to form PhenomeX, and in 2023 Bruker bought it for $108M — $1.00 a share, a fraction of its peak.

Source: GenomeWeb / Pharmaceutical Technology / SEC (IPO July 2020 at $22, peaked $103 Dec 2020, market value above $5B; class action over misleading claims 2021; merged with IsoPlexis as PhenomeX; Bruker acquisition $108M, $1.00/share, closed Oct 2 2023)

Founders & leadership

  • Siddhartha Kadia
    CEO (Mar 2022 onward) who led Berkeley Lights/PhenomeX into the 2023 Bruker sale
    Now President and CEO at Mesa Laboratories, Inc.LinkedIn ↗
  • Igor Khandros
    co-founder & CEO 2011-Mar 2017
    No public profile matched
  • William Davidow
    co-founder
    No public profile matched
  • Ming Wu
    co-founder
    No public profile matched

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-21. See our methodology.

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