Ginkgo Bioworks, which is building a platform for cell programming and biosecurity, has acquired key assets of Reverie Labs, which built and used AI/ML tools to accelerate drug discovery.
 
Ginkgo has acquired Reverie’s infrastructure and software for training large-scale AI foundation models and four of Reverie’s key AI team members. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Ginkgo’s AI/ML-driven discovery services offering and to accelerate Ginkgo’s work to build next-generation biological foundation models.
 
Anna Marie Wagner, SVP, Head of Corporate Development and Head of AI of Ginkgo Bioworks, said, “The Reverie Labs team has built an impressive platform and architecture for computationally-driven biological discovery and validation, and it’s going to be very exciting to be able to use the tools they’ve developed across the wide, diverse range of discovery challenges our customers face. It has been a joy to work with this team throughout the transaction, and I’m looking forward to working with the Reverie team to accelerate the development of multimodal foundation models at Ginkgo.”

Onboarding Reverie’s Technology and Team Members

The Reverie team joining Ginkgo as a part of this transaction (including Reverie’s CTO, Ankit Gupta, who will be joining Ginkgo as Head of AI/ML Advancement) will support both the onboarding of Reverie’s technology into Ginkgo’s growing AI/ML infrastructure and also support the future development and application of AI/ML-based techniques to engineer biology.
 
Ginkgo will incorporate Reverie’s models, software, and workflows to advance its infrastructure for AI/ML-driven experimental design. Reverie’s generative AI platform for chemistry will also be added into Ginkgo’s capabilities to support small molecule programs.
 
Jonah Kallenbach, CEO and co-founder of Reverie Labs, remarked: “Our team at Reverie has made great strides using machine learning modeling to improve human wellbeing, and I am eager to marry our technology with Ginkgo’s repository of data, enabling Ginkgo to build some of the world’s best AI models to engineer biology and chemistry. Ginkgo is a perfect home for the technology that Ankit, the Reverie team, and I have built over the last six years, and I am very excited to see the impact it will have in the short and long term.”
 
Ginkgo’s existing AI/ML-driven efforts include Owl, its tool for AI-guided design. Last year, Ginkgo also announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to build a generative AI platform for engineering biology and for biosecurity. Additionally, Ginkgo has partnered with Merck to improve its biologic manufacturing, with Pfizer to advance the discovery and development of novel RNA molecules across priority research areas, and with Boehringer Ingelheim to accelerate discovery and development of novel therapeutic molecules to address hard-to-treat diseases.