Ginkgo Bioworks; Synthesizing tomorrow by incubating today
DISCLAIMER
This is a repost of my idea on Ginkgo that originally posted under the ticker $SRNG. This is not an updated version, I have not seen too much material changes to warrant a new analysis so soon, as everything has continued to develop according to the initial. I have not changed the ticker within the analysis from SRNG to DNA to show it's reference in time, and the limitations from that.
This is in no way, shape or form, fluid and function, an analytical, qualitative or intelligent compte rendu. There is absolutely no financial advice here because the only financial advice I can give is to research, research, and research. The purpose of this analysis is to serve as an example of an investigation into a company's background, fundamentals, and assets through various lenses to determine what is a good potential investment. The function of this write up is to serve as an educational resource for investors looking to understand how to find good investments. So read and learn some things about a company that might just change the world and kick off a rapid cycle of development for industries across the spectrum using microorganisms.
Pre-Thesis
First, read the companies investor presentation here.
Thesis
A pre-addendum to this thesis, and the greater body of work; this author loves Ginkgo. All of it. Everything makes sense and the company gets it done. Scientists from top to bottom with a clear value in people. Fundamentals scream buy on every front, Ginkgo Bioworks has potential to be more than just the Google of Biology. In earnest, the company is an absolute win, and as the market comes to understand what exactly synthetic biology is, Ginkgo will earn respect deserved. The market has never seen a company like Ginkgo, even chemicals giants like 3M don't seem fit to compare. Every once in a while a company comes along that changes the definition of the industry, where biology might be thought of as limited to medicines, or synthetic biology might have been thought of for novel chemicals; Ginkgo is the breakthrough technology that the market will recognize. However, everything about the current fundamentals and the origins of the company scream caution. While SPAC the term is mocked in financial media, the full issue underlying has not gained hold.
Ginkgo the company, and $SRNG, the ticker, will be set to unite ~September 19th, 2021, making Ginkgo $DNA. Ginkgo, and the Soaring Eagle Acquisition Group will not fully separate for quite some time. As the initial "investors" flea the scene of the crime, the price will be in an unpredictable pattern. The options chains for Ginkgo are over-weighted, a possible sign of significant retail interest, while the market makers writing those options take on more shares, and keep the price in a wide-fixed channel for their percentages. While each investor must decide if the investment is correct for them, and when to make it, as well as the risk, this author cites $SRNG as extremely volatile with significant upside. Due to the nature of an open PIPE-line of a SPAC, it is unlikely a squeeze, short or gamma, will occur. While the regular cast of criminal hedgefunds making money off of forced volatility are present, a significant number of institutional buyers that would suggest a more bullish cast are buying. With the big three, Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackrock, not in the pool, and a clear need for Ginkgo to fill a number of ESG portfolios, there is the possibility for heavy institutional desires. Adding to the mix are the number of asset management and bank holders that would be reminiscent of a large percentage acquisition bid. And standing at a theoretical $15 billion market cap post deal at $10/share, there is little reason to not assume a significant upside. Following previous SPAC patterns, it might be safer to extrapolate SRNG is closer to halving than doubling, but if current market events hold true to major hedgefund liquidations on the horizon, the future for $SRNG is unclear.
From this point on, this is a love letter to Ginkgo's ($DNA) potential, and a hopeful comparison to their present.
Synthetic biology is a fancy way of saying "making yeast, fungi or bacteria to make something new to them and useful for us". Ranging from practicality to pure imagination, synthetic biology is likely to be the last stop of development cycles, barring the invention of magic. The development cycle for jet fuel has been to mine it from the ground, to chemically synthesizing it, to now using yeast to make it. This will be the final developmental step for jet fuel until innovation to a new fuel/energy source. Diamonds were mined, now chemically in the lab, until eventually, some fungi is made to form massive diamonds from nothing more than waste feed. This is the rudimentary start for synthetic biology as well. Ginkgo recently partnered with Bolt Threads, a group trying to use synthetic biology to make spider silk in massive quantities, enough for scalable commercialization. And Ginkgo is going to do it, as long as it can be done. For now, scientists push synthetic biology in novel ways to scalable structures, that is to say, micro-structures building micro-structures. In this way, Ginkgo working with Cronos to make yeast produce THC antiderivatives models little cells making little compounds. How Ginkgo is going to come at filaments will be very interesting to see, and if it works, could be used to make far more than just spider silk.
On the endless possibilities of synthetic biology, each reader becomes the author as every concept could become actualized. Creating living structures that heal through wear and tear, surviving flooding, earthquakes, and massive wind forces. Creating localized factories capable of outputting essential materials and nutrients for the population to ensure food security. Creating rare materials out of recycled waste for massive industrial development. From healing the planet to building new ones on Mars and outward, synthetic biology is all of that. And humanity has reached the point where the doors have been opened to the future, it is walking through it without realizing, and as more and more synthetic biology successes are popularized, Ginkgo will reap the reward of being the first, the best, and a proven partner.
The way early Google incubated the dreams of their employees, so too does Ginkgo. Motif FoodWorks, itself just gaining an impressive valuation, is a seed from inside Ginkgo that is blossoming both in and out of Ginkgo, all to the tune of 30% equity ownership and persistent contracts for R&D + future manufacturing. From all regards, this is likely just the start of the game for Ginkgo, especially as they show no signs of slowing down on growth and risk. Perhaps the greatest signifier is their impressive team size. In a world where R&D platforms do their best to slim down, Ginkgo moves to build. To their reward, they earn the R&D funding of countless future partners, and significant to now, Bayer, Roche, Biogen, Cronos (of $CRON), and more with significant revenue streams. To this end, Ginkgo plays the role as a mobile R&D unit for big players, a R&D wing for smaller startups allowing them to focus on business, an R&D extension providing expertise in the world of Synthetic Biology to other R&D groups, while also building their own brand of companies like Motif.
Illustrating the potential market for these Synthetic biology projects is Gevo ($GEVO), which this author has written on before. Gevo's platform, using biomass waste like corn growth material to generate isobutanol which can be used as Jet fuel or made into a carbon neutral fuel for internal combustion engines, is all enabled by synthetic biology. That is, a Nobel prize winning biochemist, Dr. Frances Arnold, modified yeast to make isobutanol instead of alcohol. Ginkgo's specialty is taking yeast and getting them to do novel processes just like Gevo did. In the context of their partnership with Cronos, they are tasked with getting the yeast to make the precursors of THC, something done in specific plants. A sample workflow for this process would look like the following: Identify the synthesis pathway for THC, put the enzymes in yeast and see if they make drugs. Their recent success was with the synthesis of CBGA, the Cannabinoid precursor for the first major project arm of their partnership with Cronos, guaranteeing them ~1.5 million shares of Cronos in equity, while opening the path for ~9.5 million more with the final synthesis of three derivatives of CBGA. Progressing this project, Ginkgo will add the enzymes thought responsible for the natural synthesis of the derivatives in plants into yeast synthesizing CBGA. While the process seems simple enough, the work is grindy and failure-ridden, and unprepared startups would spend tens of millions of dollars and years of setup time, where the partnership with Ginkgo looks to cost ~$4M on average depending on project logistics.
In one regard, more companies shuttering their R&D arms saves everyone money, and creates more capital to put into riskier projects without the need to account for startup costs and heavy research lead times. On the other, less R&D groups means less jobs in an already terrible job economy for Research, driving demand even lower, supply constantly increasing, all without consummate pay increases for the lucky few in the great positions; enabling science foundries like Ginkgo runs the risk of causing long term harm to the future supply of competent researchers. Again, on the other, Ginkgo has a clear predilection to hire before they need to, and establishing a center for researchers running on ethical and logistical lessons of researchers allows the possibility of a fair market unionization of research laborers. The social aspects to Ginkgo's success are sure to be interesting the same way that Google's, Facebook's, Microsoft's, etc. are to the investment media, because Ginkgo belongs in the same tier. Whether Wall Street wants to believe in retail or not, their money will be respected, and Ginkgo's courtship with retail investors borders professional and genius.
Honestly and harshly, the only way to &$%# this up for Ginkgo, is if Ginkgo @#^%'s this up. Respectfully speaking, bringing on twitter and reddit investors is a fantastic idea if they are in as long and patient investors looking to learn, but the population seeking X000% gains on options with specific dates can create a significant storm in a can that cannot be ran from, and with the bears of the market more similar to vultures, any hole in an investor base leaves them open to significant drops in price, without updated market rules, that can leave them unable to raise significant capital to pay for previous or future debt. While it is completely possible that Ginkgo never needs to go to the market again, especially as their pipeline spits out revenue in the second half of 2021, the risk is always there. Ginkgo will inevitably become the darling of the ESG funds, leading to a certain restriction to ESG guidelines and values. Their board and staff is extremely diverse, their attitudes polar opposite of UBER's, and their management style seeming to emanate the purity that only a hopeless romanticist of a scientist could paint; any fault or failure will become a sledgehammer to the glasshouse that Ginkgo will get put into. For all the deserved praise the management team could ever get, and receives, the threat of a scandal 5 years down the line from some bear firm with little true value can pose a risk.
The greatest cap to Ginkgo's market cap is the market's understanding of the potential of synthetic biology, and it's acknowledgement that Ginkgo Bioworks is the Queen, King, Rook, Knight, Bishop, and Pawns of it's field. If Facebook's social database and its ability to manipulate it guarantee it a $1 Trillion market capitalization, then the market will struggle to define a limit for the company with a database on biological processes and the ability to manipulate them to synthesize complex and completely novel chemicals, drugs, materials, etc. Ginkgo recognizes this, and utilizes social media as a means to help themselves. Few companies have filed Reddit AMAs into EDGAR, but Ginkgo will be viewed as early adopters rather than lessons of caution.
Illustrating the depth that scientific analysis can bring, Ginkgo's Biosecurity push, with Concentric, is a masterstroke in rotating through a growing pandemic, and a significant social evolutionary moment. Creating a network of testing for COVID infections, COVID variants, and any potential plagues in schools and airports illustrates Ginkgo identifying a need, developing a solution, and putting it into action. Of course, all while fulfilling a serious and unmet hole that the US government is going to realize more and more, creating a lucrative program with the potential for massive scaling throughout the United States, as well as internationally in congruence with or to back up national testing programs.
From the risk of settling at establishing a biological and green method of synthesis for a range of chemicals, therapeutics, and rare materials, to the rewards of establishing the next phase of humanity's development on the wings of the microscopic world of synthetic biology, Ginkgo Bioworks' has significant long-term upside as the market understands the field, and Ginkgo's hold of it. While the current price dynamics and stockholder mechanics are chaotic and teeming with potential volatility to either side, the clearest solution, and soundest investment advice for $DNA, is to buy and hold. As the investor base that believes in Ginkgo's long term potential, and market potentiation, increases, the price will reflect. No investment should be a "set it and forget it", but investors looking for a future forward portfolio placement should consider Ginkgo through short term dynamics. As Ginkgo's partnerships continue through from start to finish, their equity holdings continue to accrue, leaving Ginkgo in a position to become an impressive asset manager on top, providing further routes for their Science-first ethos to dominate. As the cherry to this thesis, should an investor have any questions, their team is available on social media constantly, and as long as the tweet has a mention of tusk or wood, it'll get answered. Ginkgo Bioworks is a serious contender for any thesis investor's portfolio with flavours ranging from ESG, SciFi-Star Trek, chemicals, biologics, etc., with plenty of runway left to pick up speed for a flight that seems more likely to end in space than ever touch down on Earth.
Database Framework versus Manufacturing Pipeline Specialists
While Ginkgo might fancy itself the Microsoft of synthetic biology, I view it closer to the Google of Synthetic Biology. More of their press releases these days are partnerships on ramping up production of biologics from yeast to synthoids (synthezoids, or whatever badass term gets used), whether it's spider silk, Capping enzymes for mRNA therapies, dyes, or cannabinoids. The spread is impressive, but the real killer is this; Ginkgo is doing all the hardcore science. Their internal database for protein engineering might be impressive, but they put in the work with a high throughput platform for testing. Watching the videos shared by their social media team, their robotics suite is impressive. Their production facilities look amazing. Brewers can agree, growing yeast never looked so sleek and sexy.
The secret to Ginkgo is their team. It is massive, but it is necessary. Investment firms can make sense of this, the more analysts allowed to specialize in their respective area, the more coverage you have over the space, and thus your dominance lies in your collective ability to conquer the problem. Their team serves dual roles; to iterate through their customers problem to find the best solution (in most cases, best enzyme), and to explore the potential of synthetic biology. While some may view the peak of synthetic biology as the single cell organism capable of performing the entire synthesis of cocaine, Ginkgo has to figure out how much science can push on cellular life to perform novel complex biochemical reactions. When thinking science fiction, envision Ginkgo's long term business plan. They need to figure out if the limit is making complex chemicals and novel synthetic materials, or if they can create cells that make infinite food while fixing the ozone.
Part of that is taking on appropriate research partners, and appropriate risk. Ginkgo's platform is the mechanical testing side, and the sum of their knowledge from previous experiments. Allowing companies to plug in their knowledge base, their commercial goals, and their capital, Ginkgo only ever wins. They take zero risk from any partnership as their role starts at the development side, and R&D is covered for the first cycle. While it would be awesome to see every project end with a success and massive profits, the more likely outcome is success. Seriously, Ginkgo is knocking it out of the park with their deals and pipelines. And with each new deal comes more money with no risk, more iterations of their internal machinery, and a massive increase in their data. When the market realizes the true value of biological data, especially of this magnitude, there will need to be a fundamental change in how these companies are weighted as the intrinsic value becomes priceless.
For any startup looking to step in the synthetic biology space, they must run through the same steps of formulating a plan, building a synthetic tool base, and spending the next batch of time in the research and development phase. Ginkgo serves as the synthetic tool base and the physical workspace on biological iterations. As long as they remain fair to these startups, the need to develop in house R&D departments will decrease, leading to less start up costs, less fumbling in figuring out the correct starting point for a synthetic tool base, and have a higher chance of succeeding past this initial phase, ultimately leading to increased overall successes of the initial business plan and increased profits for the VC investors, while building their own equity in startups; Ginkgo winning means the industry wins.
Keeping to this plug and play format, Ginkgo allows itself the freedom to rotate through projects without long term operating attachment, while also serving as the launch pad to countless future successes and groundbreaking companies. Ginkgo surpasses Microsoft, Amazon, or any other company analogy for one simple reason: it plays nice. Except Google. Ginkgo feels a lot like early Google, and every compliment feels like this author could have made the same comments 20 years ago on a tech startup that was leveraging their expertise into an explosive field by doing something amazing, playing nice. While Ginkgo might commit to playing nice forever, it will be exciting to watch how they hold on to that over the next decade.
endpts.com/out-to-re...iology-giant-ginkgo/
www.prnewswire.com/n...-dyes-301358644.html
cen.acs.org/material...s-collaborate/99/i29
www.globenewswire.co...oduction-of-CBG.html
Biosecurity
This has been a fascinating field to see private companies rotate into. While the UK has the NIH to monitor for potential biothreats (such as plagues from viruses, including variants of COVID-19), USA is left with a glaring hole in protecting and preparing for oncoming biological disasters. Ginkgo has been going far outside their original reach, and succeeding. This author calls this attribute "rotating"; the need was present, the path clear, the gap filled and Ginkgo comes out of it looking a lot more than just a bioproduction monster house. Ginkgo rotated through COVID, absolutely hurt by the lack of productivity, not just from their own office, but when they rely on the productivity of outside groups, and they came out looking great, wow. Concentric, a pooled COVID test, allows for groups to be tracked down quickly as a means of limiting spread. While it isn't the same as being able to track person to person, breaking down the group is a god-send in keeping exposure limited.
Concentric is a bit more than just a one time program as well. COVID is likely here to stay, and with the increased precautions surrounding this virus, an increase in consciousness to the spread of Influenza and other possible viral contagions leads to one salient demand; the viral ecosystem must be monitored to stay on top of future outbreaks. The scary fact at the end of the day with COVID, is that nothing absolutely special happened with it. Sure, it might be linked to some pangolin or bat in a market, but the Spanish Flu could be traced back to a pig farm in Iowa. With the dramatic increase in globalization and population density, the probabilities of plagues increases. Only by monitoring for these, as well as working on our biological defense mechanisms, can the world best protect itself from future pandemics.
Ginkgo coming in first isn’t a gimmick, they are making it happen. Their recent partnership with XpresSpa is allowing themselves to serve as the biological platform for any number of future physical testing and monitoring service, and making good graces with the air travel industry is a good way to jet across the world with business partnerships. This isn't ground breaking science, it isn't too much more than a basic biology 101 lab, but it is an important tool in protecting lives and staying ahead of pandemics. What's better is they can serve as the monitor for variants. Unfortunately, variant testing is not done well and not done in high quantities. There is a significant chance that a large population of the current "delta" wave is lambda or novel mutants, and not knowing what exactly is happening to the virus as it spreads across the world, and America, leaves us vulnerable to all possibilities.
As so much Ginkgo has leveraged their social media reach for their own market capitalization, they have used it to sell their system as well. This author has seen tweets from the VP of Ginkgo to a School board member in some random state selling the Concentric platform, and it worked. Want to sell the product, use the product developer. This author cannot state enough how scientists in charge of everything can be amazing as long as they are kept inside the safeguards of fair fiduciary responsibility.
Their second project of note: IARPA, for sure some derivative of DARPA, sponsors Ginkgo to develop code to make sure no customer orders DNA sequences that could be used to create a biological weapon. First, that is awesomely dystopian sci-fi. The fact that the United States of America has to monitor Scientists to make sure we aren’t trying to create some monster virus that wipes out the entirety of humanity speaks to the fact that we are playing with tools that deserve more respect than we are given. While there's an argument for establishing fair market value for research work, it shall be spared from this article. This is one of those programs that needs to be funded way before it is needed, and tested way before it has to go online. This is the kind of job that scientists should be paid big money to brainstorm the destruction of biological life just to ensure no one else should be able to order it from their DNA synthesizer of choice.
www.ginkgobioworks.c...our-work/concentric/
www.globenewswire.co...oncentric-by-Gi.html
www.ginkgobioworks.c...work-on-biosecurity/
SPAC Theory
This author utilizes these write-ups for multiple purposes; First and foremost, education and research are righteous. Second, giving retail investors the tools to perform their own deep dives in companies such that Wall Street Elite's ability to make blank claims is diminished. Third, breaking down several corrupt and broken components of the stock market and exposing them to the public for greater understanding of the type of crime big banks and big money is able to do.
While SPAC's are contentious for many reasons, the first being the fact that they are blank-checks and the directors of them get full control on the company bought, the biggest issue this author wants to draw to SPACs is their creation and mechanics surrounding their initial release. In a normal IPO, a bank or large investment group must be willing to co-sign the total value of the stock offering, that is to say, someone must be willing to put up money against Ginkgo's $15 Billion blank-check opening. In the past, a bank like Goldman Sachs might partner with Ginkgo, offer them a few million dollars of early funding and the hard work of powering through most of the useless barriers the SEC puts up for listing on the stock market, while gaining a huge amount of equity in Ginkgo and the right to sell the shares at the beginning. Then Goldman would go to a Market Maker, whose job is to create a buffer for the price on the stock market by creating active channels where investors can enter, buy shares, and hopefully not sell them back. SPACs are different from IPOs in that a huge amount of shares are sold off right away as all the initial investors are laundering money through the Cayman Islands, so their interest in the initial investment growing is nil, they just need the money to keep shuffling to provide more laundering. Not to say Goldman Sachs isn't doing the same, because they are, but even banks have limits to the money they'll launder (except Deutsche and HSBC). SPACs don't fix rules, they just allow more corrupt entities without control access to the market creating more room for manipulation, not less.
SPACs take the worst elements of an IPO, and make it that much worse. Citadel, a market maker, broker-dealer, private investment firm, public investment firm, pseudo-bank, puppet master of Robinhood and retail trades, is able to come in and serve the role of Goldman Sachs without any one else inviting them in. Like any Vampire, Citadel loves the ability to skip waiting at the door, and their ability to flourish in SPACs is a time bomb waiting to go off. The worst part is this, the market making is so manipulative that the price is unable to leave the desired channel, even if all the initial shares are sold. Citadel is also a massive options market maker, meaning they are selling all the options for $SRNG as well, so any hope of the price breaking out is likely to be nil, until the SEC and federal government create rules protecting the free and fair market activity of price discovery. This is also a reason why $SPFR is on the chart, despite being completely separate, despite being absolutely in no way similar to $DNA, establishes similar behaviours. The price is at $10, not because the market wants it, but because Citadel is going to keep it there long after any initial shares are left. While Citadel and Kenneth Griffin might be the "genius" giants of the field, they are not the only ones, and any number of corrupt entities utilize SPACs to launder billions of dollars. The solution to all of this would be to re-write the process of IPOs, protecting investors and companies, but then the SEC and banks lose their critical cuts of their corrupt game. This authors advice in this is dual; first, only buy shares, options are for idiots and insiders (not really, but be prepared to lose everything in calls and puts). Second, demand legislative action ensuring transparency in the free market and preventing money laundering through firms at foreign banks. It is of this authors opinion that the country Cayman Islands is too underdeveloped to have the sophisticated and mature banks of Cayman Islands.
This particular SPAC's history is irrelevant, and an investigation into the CEO and business creation dealings is a little painful, but futile. The SPAC creator is heavily linked to Romney's Bain Capital and a larger number of ill-repute market participants. These issues will get resolved over the next few months and years as the investor population rotates and the bull market is able to take hold. SRNG had a huge PIPE transaction, raised a lot of money and brought on investors like ARK. Now, the institutional holders have a great mix of the who's who of stock manipulation, list of great contenders for world's biggest hedgefund meltdown, and the secretive, always morally ambiguous, and often corrupt, Swiss.
whalewisdom.com/stock/srng
www.nasdaq.com/marke...stitutional-holdings
There are legitimately great investors, especially of the recent buyers (not D.E. Shaw, they are evil). But the most telling names, are the ones absent. The big three bulls, Vanguard, BlackRock and Fidelity (has <100k) are no where to be seen. This could be great news as it lets investors get in before the big bulls, or it could be a sign of turbulence to come and these, and other infamous bulls, are waiting for some incoming drop. It is also possible that these institutions have not bought in as the merger has not finalized, and it is still in it's SPAC phase. Of note, there are an extremely high amount of $10 calls spread over the coming months, and with an open PIPE, nearly unlimited shares to sell, and a market that could see high level liquidations, it is more likely that SRNG will have a significant drop than a big increase in price. That isn't to say there won't be a fair share of volatility first, these groups want to sell as many calls as they can for as obscene a price as they can, expecting impulse waves to build up that market is fairly reasonable.
This isn't an attempt to dissuade the reader from investing now, it is a fair analysis of the risks and benefits that a dive into the pool can bring, but it is an absolute dissuasion from playing options with SRNG. If anything, this author views investors buying shares now as the best thing that could happen to Ginkgo. As the healthier retail investors, and institutions, come in and buy up shares, there is less footing for more manipulative members to come in. Furthermore, as the company hits more and more milestones and increased successes, more and more shares will be swallowed by perma-holders, leaving a smaller pool to fight over. This will not become a problem anytime soon as SPACs are open PIPEs, meaning the chance of a short squeeze or dwindling share pool for SRNG is remote.
www.prnewswire....-301288325.html?tc=eml_cle...
www.jstor.org/stable/40688136
publish.illinois.edu...nded-ripple-effects/
www.albanylaw.edu/si...e-market_Jl-2014.pdf
www.placementtracker...IPES versus SEOS.pdf
Bull Theory
ARK may be the modern Queen of pump and dumps, but their analysts get it right more than wrong, and they are great at social market making. Ginkgo is doing an excellent job of that itself as well. While it might not take decades for Ginkgo's meteoric rise, it is doubtful to be straight up. They may not have the same difficulty as other companies in showing the investor-base their potential, the market is already willing, but they still have to show a long term success. The biosecurity program is cute, and shows the true potentiation of spread by their management's philosophy, but at their core, Ginkgo Bioworks is a synthetic biology company and if they do not have a profitable and start to finish market on it, they will not join the highest end ranks. The success with Cronos and Aldevron are cute, but they aren't what Ginkgo needs to show what they are.
Drawing market psychology comparisons to Tesla, it took Tesla a long time to get to such high market capitalization and most of that is because of the bear investor base. Most Bulls buy their stake and leave it. Bears are vicious and constantly attack. While it is easier to sell, it is safer to buy. Short selling drops the price, but it creates another shareholder who buys it looking to sell it for more than they bought it for. While the short seller can find more and more shares to short, whether real or phantom, those shares find homes. In Tesla's case, short sellers sold more and more shares, and expected Tesla to bankrupt or to offer more shares to fill it. Skipping the more intimate detailed logistics of why the short sellers ultimately failed here, an active participant in that process was Citadel. This author believes Citadel is using its ability to create phantom shares (synthesize for the nerds), and offering them to short sellers, without short selling them themselves. Leveraging their buying capacity, and ability to create catalytic market events usually used for shorting, and their algorithms for High Frequency Trading, they cause massive impulses up in the price. This is the pump part of the pump and dump scheme. However, that setup took years and a contentious CEO like Elon Musk, and very greedy market participants who are unlikely to try the same thing over, or surely they wouldn't…
As the SEC continues to be reined in under public pressure, and if Congress ever gives them the legislative tools to do their job, and create tighter rail-guards for the market, smaller investor holdings will gain their respect as the scope of their full wealth is understood. To this end, Ginkgo reaching out and establishing an investor base now that don't care about the short term, leads to much better long term bull outcomes. The company has already shown its ability to survive, rotating into COVID in a meaningful and economic way, and the market potentiation for synthetic biology is real, the only thing left is for them to start dropping hits. Investors looking to make rotations through an unclear market capitalization in the short term will give way to investors looking to be a part of the mammoth of synthetic biology as small successes keep getting notched in, but true liftoff should not happen without a more comprehensive project success.
To this regard, Ginkgo has room in any portfolio, whether as a long term moonshot, a medium term embrace of market growth, or a short term reconciliation between the current channel and true market opinion.
Bear Theory
Ginkgo has a brilliant road ahead, but their initial market capitalization leaves little upside when trying to break into something brand new. While every analyst under the sun can proclaim Ginkgo a buy, if investors still aren't sure what they are buying and how the road up looks, the path will be volatile. Of course volatility is playable and profitable, leaving the regular crew plenty of space to distort price discovery within gamma squeezes and market maker channels. Perhaps in this line options are already available despite a lifespan of months on the ticker. Options are usually a trap for retail, allowing more for manipulation than profitable options chains.
Overall, the long term plan of Ginkgo is sound; partner with as many groups as possible, work on their projects risk free, rinse and repeat while developing homegrown profits. However, if Ginkgo is unable to succeed in little more than making weed after several years of rotating through projects, do not be surprised if the market retracts and they are forced to slim down. Making themselves the team player with all the skills and tools is a great way to start, but showing that they can close the game will be the biggest difference maker. On top of all of this, the wealth of synthetic biology research is largely trapped inside Academic labs, allowing a viable competitor to be raised without too much of a stretch.
Plenty of lists exist with potential competitors, ranging from small startups like Zymergen (whose recent string of failures are both a warning sign, and a positive indication of Ginkgo's strengths as they had a crisis of confidence and high level turnover), hedgefunds trying their hands at science (company unlisted for reasons), and perhaps the big bad biotechs like Agilent. The truth is that none of these are in any place better than Ginkgo, none of them have proprietary information that might put them ahead, but nothing is really stopping any of these from moving ahead amid one good rotation through a crisis.
Perhaps the greatest weapon against Ginkgo will be their investor base. While not too many companies aim to bring on the wrath of Reddit, Ginkgo rolled right in, dropped some memes, dropped some knowledge, and left their calling card in an AMA. Ginkgo knows it needs to be at the front of the conversations around how the public sees synthetic biology, the risk of it turning into the organics nonsense is a little too great to allow public discussion to go on un-moderated. Furthermore, they believe they can utilize this investor base to be loyal, and intelligent, and this author agrees. However, there will come a point when this investor base is used against them, manipulative quacks on social media have been taking advantage of the silence, and desperation among retail investors for decades in a move that mimics boiler rooms of old. How Ginkgo is able to dance with these "shills", and how they are able to spin through negative events and downtime in between major catalytic events, will show how successful they can be with this business strategy. Perhaps in some suite, it makes sense that their investor relations is there staff, and that the company spending money, time and human resources in art, writing, news, and education, is going to give them something competitive similar to Tesla's use of their investor base. In this regard, Memestocks gaining 600+ P/E is akin to Amazon/Apple gaining such high P/E's with favourability from institutional investors, and it shifts Tesla from being abnormal, to a model image for the public company.
www.owler.com/company/ginkgobioworks
www.reddit.com/r/IAm..._ginkgo_bioworks_we/
Disclaimer
Thank you for your time, I truly value it and hope that this brings value to it. This analysis is not to serve as primary financial advice, rhyme or reason. This work is to serve as an editorialized overview of the parts and pieces of the investment, as well as the different ways this author analyzes it. As of the date of publication, 10/6/2021, this author has no investments in $DNA. This author is extremely bullish on Ginkgo, with plans of significant investment in $DNA.
As the primary purpose of this article is to be informative of the company, the stock market, and relevant market mechanics, please feel free to ask any questions.
Thank you.
This is a repost of my idea on Ginkgo that originally posted under the ticker $SRNG. This is not an updated version, I have not seen too much material changes to warrant a new analysis so soon, as everything has continued to develop according to the initial. I have not changed the ticker within the analysis from SRNG to DNA to show it's reference in time, and the limitations from that.
This is in no way, shape or form, fluid and function, an analytical, qualitative or intelligent compte rendu. There is absolutely no financial advice here because the only financial advice I can give is to research, research, and research. The purpose of this analysis is to serve as an example of an investigation into a company's background, fundamentals, and assets through various lenses to determine what is a good potential investment. The function of this write up is to serve as an educational resource for investors looking to understand how to find good investments. So read and learn some things about a company that might just change the world and kick off a rapid cycle of development for industries across the spectrum using microorganisms.
Pre-Thesis
First, read the companies investor presentation here.
Thesis
A pre-addendum to this thesis, and the greater body of work; this author loves Ginkgo. All of it. Everything makes sense and the company gets it done. Scientists from top to bottom with a clear value in people. Fundamentals scream buy on every front, Ginkgo Bioworks has potential to be more than just the Google of Biology. In earnest, the company is an absolute win, and as the market comes to understand what exactly synthetic biology is, Ginkgo will earn respect deserved. The market has never seen a company like Ginkgo, even chemicals giants like 3M don't seem fit to compare. Every once in a while a company comes along that changes the definition of the industry, where biology might be thought of as limited to medicines, or synthetic biology might have been thought of for novel chemicals; Ginkgo is the breakthrough technology that the market will recognize. However, everything about the current fundamentals and the origins of the company scream caution. While SPAC the term is mocked in financial media, the full issue underlying has not gained hold.
Ginkgo the company, and $SRNG, the ticker, will be set to unite ~September 19th, 2021, making Ginkgo $DNA. Ginkgo, and the Soaring Eagle Acquisition Group will not fully separate for quite some time. As the initial "investors" flea the scene of the crime, the price will be in an unpredictable pattern. The options chains for Ginkgo are over-weighted, a possible sign of significant retail interest, while the market makers writing those options take on more shares, and keep the price in a wide-fixed channel for their percentages. While each investor must decide if the investment is correct for them, and when to make it, as well as the risk, this author cites $SRNG as extremely volatile with significant upside. Due to the nature of an open PIPE-line of a SPAC, it is unlikely a squeeze, short or gamma, will occur. While the regular cast of criminal hedgefunds making money off of forced volatility are present, a significant number of institutional buyers that would suggest a more bullish cast are buying. With the big three, Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackrock, not in the pool, and a clear need for Ginkgo to fill a number of ESG portfolios, there is the possibility for heavy institutional desires. Adding to the mix are the number of asset management and bank holders that would be reminiscent of a large percentage acquisition bid. And standing at a theoretical $15 billion market cap post deal at $10/share, there is little reason to not assume a significant upside. Following previous SPAC patterns, it might be safer to extrapolate SRNG is closer to halving than doubling, but if current market events hold true to major hedgefund liquidations on the horizon, the future for $SRNG is unclear.
From this point on, this is a love letter to Ginkgo's ($DNA) potential, and a hopeful comparison to their present.
Synthetic biology is a fancy way of saying "making yeast, fungi or bacteria to make something new to them and useful for us". Ranging from practicality to pure imagination, synthetic biology is likely to be the last stop of development cycles, barring the invention of magic. The development cycle for jet fuel has been to mine it from the ground, to chemically synthesizing it, to now using yeast to make it. This will be the final developmental step for jet fuel until innovation to a new fuel/energy source. Diamonds were mined, now chemically in the lab, until eventually, some fungi is made to form massive diamonds from nothing more than waste feed. This is the rudimentary start for synthetic biology as well. Ginkgo recently partnered with Bolt Threads, a group trying to use synthetic biology to make spider silk in massive quantities, enough for scalable commercialization. And Ginkgo is going to do it, as long as it can be done. For now, scientists push synthetic biology in novel ways to scalable structures, that is to say, micro-structures building micro-structures. In this way, Ginkgo working with Cronos to make yeast produce THC antiderivatives models little cells making little compounds. How Ginkgo is going to come at filaments will be very interesting to see, and if it works, could be used to make far more than just spider silk.
On the endless possibilities of synthetic biology, each reader becomes the author as every concept could become actualized. Creating living structures that heal through wear and tear, surviving flooding, earthquakes, and massive wind forces. Creating localized factories capable of outputting essential materials and nutrients for the population to ensure food security. Creating rare materials out of recycled waste for massive industrial development. From healing the planet to building new ones on Mars and outward, synthetic biology is all of that. And humanity has reached the point where the doors have been opened to the future, it is walking through it without realizing, and as more and more synthetic biology successes are popularized, Ginkgo will reap the reward of being the first, the best, and a proven partner.
The way early Google incubated the dreams of their employees, so too does Ginkgo. Motif FoodWorks, itself just gaining an impressive valuation, is a seed from inside Ginkgo that is blossoming both in and out of Ginkgo, all to the tune of 30% equity ownership and persistent contracts for R&D + future manufacturing. From all regards, this is likely just the start of the game for Ginkgo, especially as they show no signs of slowing down on growth and risk. Perhaps the greatest signifier is their impressive team size. In a world where R&D platforms do their best to slim down, Ginkgo moves to build. To their reward, they earn the R&D funding of countless future partners, and significant to now, Bayer, Roche, Biogen, Cronos (of $CRON), and more with significant revenue streams. To this end, Ginkgo plays the role as a mobile R&D unit for big players, a R&D wing for smaller startups allowing them to focus on business, an R&D extension providing expertise in the world of Synthetic Biology to other R&D groups, while also building their own brand of companies like Motif.
Illustrating the potential market for these Synthetic biology projects is Gevo ($GEVO), which this author has written on before. Gevo's platform, using biomass waste like corn growth material to generate isobutanol which can be used as Jet fuel or made into a carbon neutral fuel for internal combustion engines, is all enabled by synthetic biology. That is, a Nobel prize winning biochemist, Dr. Frances Arnold, modified yeast to make isobutanol instead of alcohol. Ginkgo's specialty is taking yeast and getting them to do novel processes just like Gevo did. In the context of their partnership with Cronos, they are tasked with getting the yeast to make the precursors of THC, something done in specific plants. A sample workflow for this process would look like the following: Identify the synthesis pathway for THC, put the enzymes in yeast and see if they make drugs. Their recent success was with the synthesis of CBGA, the Cannabinoid precursor for the first major project arm of their partnership with Cronos, guaranteeing them ~1.5 million shares of Cronos in equity, while opening the path for ~9.5 million more with the final synthesis of three derivatives of CBGA. Progressing this project, Ginkgo will add the enzymes thought responsible for the natural synthesis of the derivatives in plants into yeast synthesizing CBGA. While the process seems simple enough, the work is grindy and failure-ridden, and unprepared startups would spend tens of millions of dollars and years of setup time, where the partnership with Ginkgo looks to cost ~$4M on average depending on project logistics.
In one regard, more companies shuttering their R&D arms saves everyone money, and creates more capital to put into riskier projects without the need to account for startup costs and heavy research lead times. On the other, less R&D groups means less jobs in an already terrible job economy for Research, driving demand even lower, supply constantly increasing, all without consummate pay increases for the lucky few in the great positions; enabling science foundries like Ginkgo runs the risk of causing long term harm to the future supply of competent researchers. Again, on the other, Ginkgo has a clear predilection to hire before they need to, and establishing a center for researchers running on ethical and logistical lessons of researchers allows the possibility of a fair market unionization of research laborers. The social aspects to Ginkgo's success are sure to be interesting the same way that Google's, Facebook's, Microsoft's, etc. are to the investment media, because Ginkgo belongs in the same tier. Whether Wall Street wants to believe in retail or not, their money will be respected, and Ginkgo's courtship with retail investors borders professional and genius.
Honestly and harshly, the only way to &$%# this up for Ginkgo, is if Ginkgo @#^%'s this up. Respectfully speaking, bringing on twitter and reddit investors is a fantastic idea if they are in as long and patient investors looking to learn, but the population seeking X000% gains on options with specific dates can create a significant storm in a can that cannot be ran from, and with the bears of the market more similar to vultures, any hole in an investor base leaves them open to significant drops in price, without updated market rules, that can leave them unable to raise significant capital to pay for previous or future debt. While it is completely possible that Ginkgo never needs to go to the market again, especially as their pipeline spits out revenue in the second half of 2021, the risk is always there. Ginkgo will inevitably become the darling of the ESG funds, leading to a certain restriction to ESG guidelines and values. Their board and staff is extremely diverse, their attitudes polar opposite of UBER's, and their management style seeming to emanate the purity that only a hopeless romanticist of a scientist could paint; any fault or failure will become a sledgehammer to the glasshouse that Ginkgo will get put into. For all the deserved praise the management team could ever get, and receives, the threat of a scandal 5 years down the line from some bear firm with little true value can pose a risk.
The greatest cap to Ginkgo's market cap is the market's understanding of the potential of synthetic biology, and it's acknowledgement that Ginkgo Bioworks is the Queen, King, Rook, Knight, Bishop, and Pawns of it's field. If Facebook's social database and its ability to manipulate it guarantee it a $1 Trillion market capitalization, then the market will struggle to define a limit for the company with a database on biological processes and the ability to manipulate them to synthesize complex and completely novel chemicals, drugs, materials, etc. Ginkgo recognizes this, and utilizes social media as a means to help themselves. Few companies have filed Reddit AMAs into EDGAR, but Ginkgo will be viewed as early adopters rather than lessons of caution.
Illustrating the depth that scientific analysis can bring, Ginkgo's Biosecurity push, with Concentric, is a masterstroke in rotating through a growing pandemic, and a significant social evolutionary moment. Creating a network of testing for COVID infections, COVID variants, and any potential plagues in schools and airports illustrates Ginkgo identifying a need, developing a solution, and putting it into action. Of course, all while fulfilling a serious and unmet hole that the US government is going to realize more and more, creating a lucrative program with the potential for massive scaling throughout the United States, as well as internationally in congruence with or to back up national testing programs.
From the risk of settling at establishing a biological and green method of synthesis for a range of chemicals, therapeutics, and rare materials, to the rewards of establishing the next phase of humanity's development on the wings of the microscopic world of synthetic biology, Ginkgo Bioworks' has significant long-term upside as the market understands the field, and Ginkgo's hold of it. While the current price dynamics and stockholder mechanics are chaotic and teeming with potential volatility to either side, the clearest solution, and soundest investment advice for $DNA, is to buy and hold. As the investor base that believes in Ginkgo's long term potential, and market potentiation, increases, the price will reflect. No investment should be a "set it and forget it", but investors looking for a future forward portfolio placement should consider Ginkgo through short term dynamics. As Ginkgo's partnerships continue through from start to finish, their equity holdings continue to accrue, leaving Ginkgo in a position to become an impressive asset manager on top, providing further routes for their Science-first ethos to dominate. As the cherry to this thesis, should an investor have any questions, their team is available on social media constantly, and as long as the tweet has a mention of tusk or wood, it'll get answered. Ginkgo Bioworks is a serious contender for any thesis investor's portfolio with flavours ranging from ESG, SciFi-Star Trek, chemicals, biologics, etc., with plenty of runway left to pick up speed for a flight that seems more likely to end in space than ever touch down on Earth.
Database Framework versus Manufacturing Pipeline Specialists
While Ginkgo might fancy itself the Microsoft of synthetic biology, I view it closer to the Google of Synthetic Biology. More of their press releases these days are partnerships on ramping up production of biologics from yeast to synthoids (synthezoids, or whatever badass term gets used), whether it's spider silk, Capping enzymes for mRNA therapies, dyes, or cannabinoids. The spread is impressive, but the real killer is this; Ginkgo is doing all the hardcore science. Their internal database for protein engineering might be impressive, but they put in the work with a high throughput platform for testing. Watching the videos shared by their social media team, their robotics suite is impressive. Their production facilities look amazing. Brewers can agree, growing yeast never looked so sleek and sexy.
The secret to Ginkgo is their team. It is massive, but it is necessary. Investment firms can make sense of this, the more analysts allowed to specialize in their respective area, the more coverage you have over the space, and thus your dominance lies in your collective ability to conquer the problem. Their team serves dual roles; to iterate through their customers problem to find the best solution (in most cases, best enzyme), and to explore the potential of synthetic biology. While some may view the peak of synthetic biology as the single cell organism capable of performing the entire synthesis of cocaine, Ginkgo has to figure out how much science can push on cellular life to perform novel complex biochemical reactions. When thinking science fiction, envision Ginkgo's long term business plan. They need to figure out if the limit is making complex chemicals and novel synthetic materials, or if they can create cells that make infinite food while fixing the ozone.
Part of that is taking on appropriate research partners, and appropriate risk. Ginkgo's platform is the mechanical testing side, and the sum of their knowledge from previous experiments. Allowing companies to plug in their knowledge base, their commercial goals, and their capital, Ginkgo only ever wins. They take zero risk from any partnership as their role starts at the development side, and R&D is covered for the first cycle. While it would be awesome to see every project end with a success and massive profits, the more likely outcome is success. Seriously, Ginkgo is knocking it out of the park with their deals and pipelines. And with each new deal comes more money with no risk, more iterations of their internal machinery, and a massive increase in their data. When the market realizes the true value of biological data, especially of this magnitude, there will need to be a fundamental change in how these companies are weighted as the intrinsic value becomes priceless.
For any startup looking to step in the synthetic biology space, they must run through the same steps of formulating a plan, building a synthetic tool base, and spending the next batch of time in the research and development phase. Ginkgo serves as the synthetic tool base and the physical workspace on biological iterations. As long as they remain fair to these startups, the need to develop in house R&D departments will decrease, leading to less start up costs, less fumbling in figuring out the correct starting point for a synthetic tool base, and have a higher chance of succeeding past this initial phase, ultimately leading to increased overall successes of the initial business plan and increased profits for the VC investors, while building their own equity in startups; Ginkgo winning means the industry wins.
Keeping to this plug and play format, Ginkgo allows itself the freedom to rotate through projects without long term operating attachment, while also serving as the launch pad to countless future successes and groundbreaking companies. Ginkgo surpasses Microsoft, Amazon, or any other company analogy for one simple reason: it plays nice. Except Google. Ginkgo feels a lot like early Google, and every compliment feels like this author could have made the same comments 20 years ago on a tech startup that was leveraging their expertise into an explosive field by doing something amazing, playing nice. While Ginkgo might commit to playing nice forever, it will be exciting to watch how they hold on to that over the next decade.
endpts.com/out-to-re...iology-giant-ginkgo/
www.prnewswire.com/n...-dyes-301358644.html
cen.acs.org/material...s-collaborate/99/i29
www.globenewswire.co...oduction-of-CBG.html
Biosecurity
This has been a fascinating field to see private companies rotate into. While the UK has the NIH to monitor for potential biothreats (such as plagues from viruses, including variants of COVID-19), USA is left with a glaring hole in protecting and preparing for oncoming biological disasters. Ginkgo has been going far outside their original reach, and succeeding. This author calls this attribute "rotating"; the need was present, the path clear, the gap filled and Ginkgo comes out of it looking a lot more than just a bioproduction monster house. Ginkgo rotated through COVID, absolutely hurt by the lack of productivity, not just from their own office, but when they rely on the productivity of outside groups, and they came out looking great, wow. Concentric, a pooled COVID test, allows for groups to be tracked down quickly as a means of limiting spread. While it isn't the same as being able to track person to person, breaking down the group is a god-send in keeping exposure limited.
Concentric is a bit more than just a one time program as well. COVID is likely here to stay, and with the increased precautions surrounding this virus, an increase in consciousness to the spread of Influenza and other possible viral contagions leads to one salient demand; the viral ecosystem must be monitored to stay on top of future outbreaks. The scary fact at the end of the day with COVID, is that nothing absolutely special happened with it. Sure, it might be linked to some pangolin or bat in a market, but the Spanish Flu could be traced back to a pig farm in Iowa. With the dramatic increase in globalization and population density, the probabilities of plagues increases. Only by monitoring for these, as well as working on our biological defense mechanisms, can the world best protect itself from future pandemics.
Ginkgo coming in first isn’t a gimmick, they are making it happen. Their recent partnership with XpresSpa is allowing themselves to serve as the biological platform for any number of future physical testing and monitoring service, and making good graces with the air travel industry is a good way to jet across the world with business partnerships. This isn't ground breaking science, it isn't too much more than a basic biology 101 lab, but it is an important tool in protecting lives and staying ahead of pandemics. What's better is they can serve as the monitor for variants. Unfortunately, variant testing is not done well and not done in high quantities. There is a significant chance that a large population of the current "delta" wave is lambda or novel mutants, and not knowing what exactly is happening to the virus as it spreads across the world, and America, leaves us vulnerable to all possibilities.
As so much Ginkgo has leveraged their social media reach for their own market capitalization, they have used it to sell their system as well. This author has seen tweets from the VP of Ginkgo to a School board member in some random state selling the Concentric platform, and it worked. Want to sell the product, use the product developer. This author cannot state enough how scientists in charge of everything can be amazing as long as they are kept inside the safeguards of fair fiduciary responsibility.
Their second project of note: IARPA, for sure some derivative of DARPA, sponsors Ginkgo to develop code to make sure no customer orders DNA sequences that could be used to create a biological weapon. First, that is awesomely dystopian sci-fi. The fact that the United States of America has to monitor Scientists to make sure we aren’t trying to create some monster virus that wipes out the entirety of humanity speaks to the fact that we are playing with tools that deserve more respect than we are given. While there's an argument for establishing fair market value for research work, it shall be spared from this article. This is one of those programs that needs to be funded way before it is needed, and tested way before it has to go online. This is the kind of job that scientists should be paid big money to brainstorm the destruction of biological life just to ensure no one else should be able to order it from their DNA synthesizer of choice.
www.ginkgobioworks.c...our-work/concentric/
www.globenewswire.co...oncentric-by-Gi.html
www.ginkgobioworks.c...work-on-biosecurity/
SPAC Theory
This author utilizes these write-ups for multiple purposes; First and foremost, education and research are righteous. Second, giving retail investors the tools to perform their own deep dives in companies such that Wall Street Elite's ability to make blank claims is diminished. Third, breaking down several corrupt and broken components of the stock market and exposing them to the public for greater understanding of the type of crime big banks and big money is able to do.
While SPAC's are contentious for many reasons, the first being the fact that they are blank-checks and the directors of them get full control on the company bought, the biggest issue this author wants to draw to SPACs is their creation and mechanics surrounding their initial release. In a normal IPO, a bank or large investment group must be willing to co-sign the total value of the stock offering, that is to say, someone must be willing to put up money against Ginkgo's $15 Billion blank-check opening. In the past, a bank like Goldman Sachs might partner with Ginkgo, offer them a few million dollars of early funding and the hard work of powering through most of the useless barriers the SEC puts up for listing on the stock market, while gaining a huge amount of equity in Ginkgo and the right to sell the shares at the beginning. Then Goldman would go to a Market Maker, whose job is to create a buffer for the price on the stock market by creating active channels where investors can enter, buy shares, and hopefully not sell them back. SPACs are different from IPOs in that a huge amount of shares are sold off right away as all the initial investors are laundering money through the Cayman Islands, so their interest in the initial investment growing is nil, they just need the money to keep shuffling to provide more laundering. Not to say Goldman Sachs isn't doing the same, because they are, but even banks have limits to the money they'll launder (except Deutsche and HSBC). SPACs don't fix rules, they just allow more corrupt entities without control access to the market creating more room for manipulation, not less.
SPACs take the worst elements of an IPO, and make it that much worse. Citadel, a market maker, broker-dealer, private investment firm, public investment firm, pseudo-bank, puppet master of Robinhood and retail trades, is able to come in and serve the role of Goldman Sachs without any one else inviting them in. Like any Vampire, Citadel loves the ability to skip waiting at the door, and their ability to flourish in SPACs is a time bomb waiting to go off. The worst part is this, the market making is so manipulative that the price is unable to leave the desired channel, even if all the initial shares are sold. Citadel is also a massive options market maker, meaning they are selling all the options for $SRNG as well, so any hope of the price breaking out is likely to be nil, until the SEC and federal government create rules protecting the free and fair market activity of price discovery. This is also a reason why $SPFR is on the chart, despite being completely separate, despite being absolutely in no way similar to $DNA, establishes similar behaviours. The price is at $10, not because the market wants it, but because Citadel is going to keep it there long after any initial shares are left. While Citadel and Kenneth Griffin might be the "genius" giants of the field, they are not the only ones, and any number of corrupt entities utilize SPACs to launder billions of dollars. The solution to all of this would be to re-write the process of IPOs, protecting investors and companies, but then the SEC and banks lose their critical cuts of their corrupt game. This authors advice in this is dual; first, only buy shares, options are for idiots and insiders (not really, but be prepared to lose everything in calls and puts). Second, demand legislative action ensuring transparency in the free market and preventing money laundering through firms at foreign banks. It is of this authors opinion that the country Cayman Islands is too underdeveloped to have the sophisticated and mature banks of Cayman Islands.
This particular SPAC's history is irrelevant, and an investigation into the CEO and business creation dealings is a little painful, but futile. The SPAC creator is heavily linked to Romney's Bain Capital and a larger number of ill-repute market participants. These issues will get resolved over the next few months and years as the investor population rotates and the bull market is able to take hold. SRNG had a huge PIPE transaction, raised a lot of money and brought on investors like ARK. Now, the institutional holders have a great mix of the who's who of stock manipulation, list of great contenders for world's biggest hedgefund meltdown, and the secretive, always morally ambiguous, and often corrupt, Swiss.
whalewisdom.com/stock/srng
www.nasdaq.com/marke...stitutional-holdings
There are legitimately great investors, especially of the recent buyers (not D.E. Shaw, they are evil). But the most telling names, are the ones absent. The big three bulls, Vanguard, BlackRock and Fidelity (has <100k) are no where to be seen. This could be great news as it lets investors get in before the big bulls, or it could be a sign of turbulence to come and these, and other infamous bulls, are waiting for some incoming drop. It is also possible that these institutions have not bought in as the merger has not finalized, and it is still in it's SPAC phase. Of note, there are an extremely high amount of $10 calls spread over the coming months, and with an open PIPE, nearly unlimited shares to sell, and a market that could see high level liquidations, it is more likely that SRNG will have a significant drop than a big increase in price. That isn't to say there won't be a fair share of volatility first, these groups want to sell as many calls as they can for as obscene a price as they can, expecting impulse waves to build up that market is fairly reasonable.
This isn't an attempt to dissuade the reader from investing now, it is a fair analysis of the risks and benefits that a dive into the pool can bring, but it is an absolute dissuasion from playing options with SRNG. If anything, this author views investors buying shares now as the best thing that could happen to Ginkgo. As the healthier retail investors, and institutions, come in and buy up shares, there is less footing for more manipulative members to come in. Furthermore, as the company hits more and more milestones and increased successes, more and more shares will be swallowed by perma-holders, leaving a smaller pool to fight over. This will not become a problem anytime soon as SPACs are open PIPEs, meaning the chance of a short squeeze or dwindling share pool for SRNG is remote.
www.prnewswire....-301288325.html?tc=eml_cle...
www.jstor.org/stable/40688136
publish.illinois.edu...nded-ripple-effects/
www.albanylaw.edu/si...e-market_Jl-2014.pdf
www.placementtracker...IPES versus SEOS.pdf
Bull Theory
ARK may be the modern Queen of pump and dumps, but their analysts get it right more than wrong, and they are great at social market making. Ginkgo is doing an excellent job of that itself as well. While it might not take decades for Ginkgo's meteoric rise, it is doubtful to be straight up. They may not have the same difficulty as other companies in showing the investor-base their potential, the market is already willing, but they still have to show a long term success. The biosecurity program is cute, and shows the true potentiation of spread by their management's philosophy, but at their core, Ginkgo Bioworks is a synthetic biology company and if they do not have a profitable and start to finish market on it, they will not join the highest end ranks. The success with Cronos and Aldevron are cute, but they aren't what Ginkgo needs to show what they are.
Drawing market psychology comparisons to Tesla, it took Tesla a long time to get to such high market capitalization and most of that is because of the bear investor base. Most Bulls buy their stake and leave it. Bears are vicious and constantly attack. While it is easier to sell, it is safer to buy. Short selling drops the price, but it creates another shareholder who buys it looking to sell it for more than they bought it for. While the short seller can find more and more shares to short, whether real or phantom, those shares find homes. In Tesla's case, short sellers sold more and more shares, and expected Tesla to bankrupt or to offer more shares to fill it. Skipping the more intimate detailed logistics of why the short sellers ultimately failed here, an active participant in that process was Citadel. This author believes Citadel is using its ability to create phantom shares (synthesize for the nerds), and offering them to short sellers, without short selling them themselves. Leveraging their buying capacity, and ability to create catalytic market events usually used for shorting, and their algorithms for High Frequency Trading, they cause massive impulses up in the price. This is the pump part of the pump and dump scheme. However, that setup took years and a contentious CEO like Elon Musk, and very greedy market participants who are unlikely to try the same thing over, or surely they wouldn't…
As the SEC continues to be reined in under public pressure, and if Congress ever gives them the legislative tools to do their job, and create tighter rail-guards for the market, smaller investor holdings will gain their respect as the scope of their full wealth is understood. To this end, Ginkgo reaching out and establishing an investor base now that don't care about the short term, leads to much better long term bull outcomes. The company has already shown its ability to survive, rotating into COVID in a meaningful and economic way, and the market potentiation for synthetic biology is real, the only thing left is for them to start dropping hits. Investors looking to make rotations through an unclear market capitalization in the short term will give way to investors looking to be a part of the mammoth of synthetic biology as small successes keep getting notched in, but true liftoff should not happen without a more comprehensive project success.
To this regard, Ginkgo has room in any portfolio, whether as a long term moonshot, a medium term embrace of market growth, or a short term reconciliation between the current channel and true market opinion.
Bear Theory
Ginkgo has a brilliant road ahead, but their initial market capitalization leaves little upside when trying to break into something brand new. While every analyst under the sun can proclaim Ginkgo a buy, if investors still aren't sure what they are buying and how the road up looks, the path will be volatile. Of course volatility is playable and profitable, leaving the regular crew plenty of space to distort price discovery within gamma squeezes and market maker channels. Perhaps in this line options are already available despite a lifespan of months on the ticker. Options are usually a trap for retail, allowing more for manipulation than profitable options chains.
Overall, the long term plan of Ginkgo is sound; partner with as many groups as possible, work on their projects risk free, rinse and repeat while developing homegrown profits. However, if Ginkgo is unable to succeed in little more than making weed after several years of rotating through projects, do not be surprised if the market retracts and they are forced to slim down. Making themselves the team player with all the skills and tools is a great way to start, but showing that they can close the game will be the biggest difference maker. On top of all of this, the wealth of synthetic biology research is largely trapped inside Academic labs, allowing a viable competitor to be raised without too much of a stretch.
Plenty of lists exist with potential competitors, ranging from small startups like Zymergen (whose recent string of failures are both a warning sign, and a positive indication of Ginkgo's strengths as they had a crisis of confidence and high level turnover), hedgefunds trying their hands at science (company unlisted for reasons), and perhaps the big bad biotechs like Agilent. The truth is that none of these are in any place better than Ginkgo, none of them have proprietary information that might put them ahead, but nothing is really stopping any of these from moving ahead amid one good rotation through a crisis.
Perhaps the greatest weapon against Ginkgo will be their investor base. While not too many companies aim to bring on the wrath of Reddit, Ginkgo rolled right in, dropped some memes, dropped some knowledge, and left their calling card in an AMA. Ginkgo knows it needs to be at the front of the conversations around how the public sees synthetic biology, the risk of it turning into the organics nonsense is a little too great to allow public discussion to go on un-moderated. Furthermore, they believe they can utilize this investor base to be loyal, and intelligent, and this author agrees. However, there will come a point when this investor base is used against them, manipulative quacks on social media have been taking advantage of the silence, and desperation among retail investors for decades in a move that mimics boiler rooms of old. How Ginkgo is able to dance with these "shills", and how they are able to spin through negative events and downtime in between major catalytic events, will show how successful they can be with this business strategy. Perhaps in some suite, it makes sense that their investor relations is there staff, and that the company spending money, time and human resources in art, writing, news, and education, is going to give them something competitive similar to Tesla's use of their investor base. In this regard, Memestocks gaining 600+ P/E is akin to Amazon/Apple gaining such high P/E's with favourability from institutional investors, and it shifts Tesla from being abnormal, to a model image for the public company.
www.owler.com/company/ginkgobioworks
www.reddit.com/r/IAm..._ginkgo_bioworks_we/
Disclaimer
Thank you for your time, I truly value it and hope that this brings value to it. This analysis is not to serve as primary financial advice, rhyme or reason. This work is to serve as an editorialized overview of the parts and pieces of the investment, as well as the different ways this author analyzes it. As of the date of publication, 10/6/2021, this author has no investments in $DNA. This author is extremely bullish on Ginkgo, with plans of significant investment in $DNA.
As the primary purpose of this article is to be informative of the company, the stock market, and relevant market mechanics, please feel free to ask any questions.
Thank you.
