Hey Y'all if you are looking for a job at a SynthBio startup in the bay area let's talk. I work for Synthego, we have been around for about 3 years and are funder by the Founders Fund. Reach me at josh@synthego.com
How do these synthetic biology startup valuations stack up against valuations in social media or information technology (cf HBO's SILICON VALLEY)? As a biochemist who performs computational protein design in order to achieve novel form or function in proteins, I have always been interested in new developments in the biotech startup land. However, I'm skeptical about the monetary rewards of synbio -- it appears to me that conventional chemical engineering is still much cheaper and more effective then new synbio approaches.
I'm not sure. With proterro working on making sugar at 1/3 of the cost(5 cents/pound) using synthetic bio, with solazyme selling specialized food components to the food industry, and with genomatica's technologies already running what seems like competitive BDO plants - it seems that SynBio can compete on cost.