ginkgo-bioworks
(4)
Will Cao
Will (Yangxiaolu) Cao is the co-founder and CEO of Pando Bioscience (YC W23), a Watertown, Massachusetts company using generative AI and ultra-high-throughput screening to engineer better enzymes for pharmaceutical manufacturing and life-science tools. A Ph.D. scientist who switched from mechanical engineering to engineering bacteria, she published first-author papers in Cell and Nature Biotechnology and was an early employee at Ginkgo Bioworks before starting Pando in 2022.
Allonnia
Allonnia is a Boston-based environmental biotechnology company that uses biology and engineered systems to solve stubborn contamination and resource-recovery problems. Spun out of Ginkgo Bioworks' Ferment Consortium in 2020, it removes PFAS from water at scale using SAFF foam-fractionation technology and is commercializing biological methods to recover critical minerals and rare earth elements from ore. The company has raised more than $100 million to bring 'bio-ingenuity' to water treatment and mining.
Nicole Richards
Nicole Richards is the founding CEO of Allonnia, a Boston-based synthetic biology company that engineers microbes to destroy forever chemicals like PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, and to pull critical minerals out of ore and waste streams. A chemical engineer with nearly three decades in water, mining and specialty chemicals, she spun Allonnia out of Ginkgo Bioworks' Ferment Consortium in 2020 with a $40M Series A and has since raised more than $109M in total funding.
Ankit Gupta
Ankit Gupta is a General Partner at Y Combinator, bringing a rare fusion of academic machine learning research, startup founding, and biotech industry leadership. He co-founded Reverie Labs (YC W18), an AI-driven drug discovery company that raised $31M and was acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2024. A Harvard magna cum laude CS grad who taught three courses and won three Derek Bok Awards, Ankit now helps the next generation of founders navigate the same inflection points he once faced.