Acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in an all-stock deal worth ~$300M (2022) — about a tenth of its IPO valuation; remnant later liquidated.
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2013–2023
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2013
🌱
2013
Founded in Emeryville
Robots plus machine learning to engineer microbes that brew novel materials — 'biofacturing', the company called it.
Wikipedia
2018
🦄
2018
Joins the unicorn club
A SoftBank Vision Fund-led $400M round bets the platform can out-engineer chemistry.
TechCrunch
Apr 2021
📈
Apr 2021
The peak: a $3B IPO$3B
Lists on the Nasdaq at roughly a $3B valuation, raising $575M on the promise of Hyaline, a flexible-display film brewed by microbes.
SEC S-1
Aug 2021
💔
Aug 2021
The Hyaline shock — out of the club overnight
Months after the IPO, Zymergen discloses its lead product has technical problems and will bring in essentially no revenue; the stock craters more than 70%, knocking it out of the club, and the CEO is ousted.
SEC filing
2021–22
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–22
Employee reviews read like a post-mortem: brilliant scientists, reviewers said, but no focus — a portfolio scattered across too many projects, five rounds of layoffs amid constant reorgs, and colleagues who had relocated cross-country only to be cut within months.
2022
🤝
2022
Acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks for ~$300M$300M
An all-stock exit at about a tenth of the IPO valuation, barely eighteen months after listing.
GEN
2023
2023
The remnant liquidates
What is left of Zymergen winds through Chapter 11 and is liquidated.
SEC filing
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Zymergen used machine learning and automation to engineer microbes that produce novel materials, riding synthetic-biology hype to a roughly $3B valuation at its April 2021 IPO. Within months it disclosed that its lead product, the flexible-display film Hyaline, had hit technical problems and would generate essentially no revenue; the stock crashed more than 70% and the CEO was ousted. Ginkgo Bioworks bought it for ~$300M in stock in 2022, and the remnant wound through Chapter 11 liquidation.
Source: GEN / Seeking Alpha / SEC ($3B valuation at April 2021 IPO, $575M raised; lead product Hyaline failed technically, stock -70%+, CEO ousted; Ginkgo Bioworks all-stock acquisition ~$300M 2022; Chapter 11 / liquidation 2023)
Founders
JH
Josh Hoffman
Co-founder & CEO
Now Founding Investor, Executive Board Member at NextGenSun · LinkedIn ↗
Zach Serber
co-founder & chief science officer
Now Chief Technology Officer at ArkeaBio · LinkedIn ↗
