Benchling

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Founders: Ashu Singhal & Sajith Wickramasekara
Founding: 2012
Mission: Unlock the power of biotechnology
Employees: 900 & ~10% Local
Workplace: Hybrid
Stage & Capital Raised: Series F & $350M raised
Investors: Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Benchmark Capital, F-Prime Capital, Menlo Ventures, Spark Capital, ICONIQ, Altimeter Capital, Tiger Global & others
Key Customers: ElevateBio, Beam Therapeutics, Moderna, Giliad, Sanofi
Glassdoor Rating: 3.5
Valuation (estimated): $3B – $7B (raised $100M in a Q3 ‘21 Series F fundraise)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!

Benchling is building a verticalized software platform for biotechnology research. Founded by Sajith Wickramasekara out of MIT in 2012, he was soon joined by Ashu Singhal to help unlock the power of biotechnology and accelerate the pace of life science R&D to build the “GitHub of biotech”. Admittedly, Benchling is San Francisco headquartered but they have a significant Boston base and founding story so…we’re gonna allow it!

Benchling is a shining late stage example of just how large technology enabled opportunities might be. Let’s keep the ambition up in these turbulent times, ok people? 

Sajith was studying Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT but was also interested in biology. When he freelanced in the labs, he noticed that his work was limited by the manual limitations of administrative work like data entry in notebooks and spreadsheets. Believing that one of the keys to more successful scientific research was around collaboration, data management, and real time sharing of that data they began building a platform to make software work better for researchers. Sajith dropped out of MIT to make his vision a reality.

The pharmaceutical industry spent over $225B in research and development last year (src) and too much of that time is spent on administration. A McKinsey report states that 45% of diseases will be addressed by biology in the next decade and biotechnology could drive $2T – $4T of direct economic impact per year over the next 20 years (src). In order to streamline lab work and improve workflows to make breakthroughs happen faster, better tools are needed.

In the time since its founding to focus on academic labs and experimental design tasks, Benchling has built a digital workspace for researchers to design and manage experiments, handle complex biomolecular data, and visualize results. Their R&D cloud and system of record addresses a broad range of industries across biopharma, agriculture, consumer packaged goods, life science diagnostics, and more. 

Benchling Connect allows customers to bring all their scientific data together, integrating data from lab instruments to help drive end to end data management. They have also built integrated partnerships with DeepMind’s AlphaFold AI program in order to predict 3D structures of proteins and an open source network where researchers, like software engineers on GitHub, can share their research.

Benchling monetizes via a freemium SaaS model where users like academics can try the platform for free, they have signed on 1,000+ biotech organizations with 200,000+ scientists using the platform, and have driven efficiencies for customers like AstraZeneca who report reduced DNA synthesis costs by up to 90%.  The company reportedly confidentially filed for an IPO in late 2021. 

Operators to Know (Locally):

My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the Benchling team I know I missed many up & coming operators internally

Key Roles To Be Hired (Locally):

If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:

  • What are the key platform features needed to scale to the next level of customer adoption?
  • What are the biggest opportunities and challenges for the year ahead?
  • How are new team members onboarded? What is the mix of in person vs. remote for a software company building for a biotechnology customer base?
  • What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add in for the rest of 2023 // teams that need the most help?

We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about Benchling you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team bring more biotechnology research into the digital age. Humanity applauds your efforts. See you around local research labs, the Internet, and beyond!

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