Synthetic Biology Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

Ginkgo Bioworks is the organism company. We design custom organisms for customers across multiple markets. We build our foundries to scale the process of organism engineering using software and hardware automation. Organism engineers at Ginkgo learn from nature to develop new organisms that replace technology with biology.

What if you could train a biological foundation model on... the entire internet? Exonic is pioneering a new generation of biological foundation models, focused on heterogeneous, unstructured, and noisy datasets. Our first application is the design of safer gene therapies. In 2025, we used AI to set a new state of the art in liver cancer targeted gene therapy, validated in vitro in our lab in San Francisco. So far in 2026, we have trained a new model with unprecedented zero-shot generalization on genomic regulatory expression in hold-out biosample datasets. More to be shared soon.

Kopra Bio makes genetically engineered viruses that teach your immune system to kill cancer using tech we developed at UCSF. We’re making the next Keytruda ($25B/yr cancer drug blockbuster) starting with the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma. In the most challenging brain cancer model, we improve survival from 0% with the current FDA approved treatment to 90% with our treatment.

We are building the next generation of deep-learning models for enzyme design to slash the cost of chemical manufacturing. The $6 trillion chemical industry is flawed: It produces 20% of industrial greenhouse gases, and is responsible for 15% of global energy usage. Enzymes offer a far more sustainable alternative to chemical synthesis and have already revolutionised how a select few chemicals are produced. The problem is each enzyme takes years of trial and error to develop. Our enzyme models learn the principles of catalysis, allowing us to design enzymes for each reaction, in days not years.

ACX is developing a new standard for precision agriculture technologies by providing sustainable, eco-friendly alternatives to chemical pesticides. Our mission is to transform agriculture through sustainable biological crop protection that increases yields while safeguarding the environment, farmers, and consumers.

1849 bio designs microbes enabling cheap metal extraction allowing miners to unlock value from low quality copper and gold ores. Surprisingly, the mining industry is one of the largest scale users of biotech in the world with biomining processes accounting for ~1% of global copper production. Biomining is ultra-low cost, running around ~$1/ton of ore vs ~$7/ton for conventional processes. Unfortunately, while biomining is cheap, it can’t be applied to over 80% of copper ores, leaving vast resources without profitable extraction methods. An estimated ~$800B of copper sit today in waste materials and stockpiles with negative unit economics. While a great deal of effort has been spent on optimizing microbial metal extraction processes, very little effort has been spent on optimizing the microbes themselves. To change that, we’re creating new biotech tools and platforms applied directly to the types of biology most relevant to miners. This enables us to develop new microbes and tackle some of the most difficult problems in biomining, unlocking billions in value from unprofitable resources while being more environmentally friendly than conventional processes. We’re world class microbial engineers. We met while doing our PhDs in synthetic biology, where we spent our time applying and developing the most advanced bioengineering technologies to engineer living cells. 

Design, simulate, and test your proteins 100x faster with the end-to-end no-code platform for protein engineering. Powered by Amina, our AI agent. With Amina, one protein engineer can do the work of 10. Describe what you want to achieve and Amina will handle everything else – from research and design to simulation, folding, docking, and protein characterization. It asks clarifying questions if needed, intelligently understands and performs the task, and analyzes your results within the context of your project.

Granza Bio is developing programmable therapeutics for the immune system. Our platform is built on the foundational discovery of immune “superkiller” attack particles — the natural ammunition used by cytotoxic immune cells to deliver potent, localized killing. By re-arming exhausted immune cells with newly programmed ammunition, Granza restores and enhances immune function. This approach enables a new class of treatments with the potential to transform diseases ranging from cancer to autoimmunity.

SynsoryBio is creating next generation, protein therapeutics that sense where they are in the body and only activate at diseased tissue. This technology platform has the potential to expand the therapeutic window of highly potent drugs and apply to many diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Pests and pathogens cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Existing technologies like agrochemicals are no longer working. Ohmic Biosciences uses protein engineering to design resistance genes for crops that are robust to pathogen evolution.

The future of mRNA therapeutics is hampered by manufacturing challenges and unless solved, its exciting potential may never be realised. Sensible enables the next generation of mRNA medicines by turning living cells into factories producing abundant, highly stable and non-immunogenic mRNA in a scalable and cost-effective way.

Pando is an AI-driven synthetic biology company revolutionizing enzyme engineering for the pharmaceutical industry. Our ultra-high-throughput screening platform screens 1000-fold more enzymes 75% faster and 80% cheaper than traditional methods. This empowers our generative AI to efficiently optimize enzymes across multiple properties, delivering high-performing, tailored enzymes that reduce costs and enhance efficiency.

Cell and gene therapy promises to one day cure any disease; Modulari-T’s Platform produces the tools to fulfill that promise. Modulari-T has designed a new family of synthetic genes that can reprogram cells to better sense their environment and modify their behavior accordingly. This can be used to engineer immune cells to efficiently recognize and kill cancer cells or to create stem cells able to regenerate any tissue. Modulari-T looks to expand its technology to reach every area of cell therapy and become the platform of reference for cell engineering.

Synvivia applies chemical control over cell behavior. This allows us to optimize biomanufacturing of high-value biopharmaceutical products.

Ansa Biotechnologies is developing a new way to make DNA that will be faster, cleaner, and more accurate than existing methods. Currently, DNA is manufactured via a chemical method that has remained mostly unchanged for 35 years. Our enzyme-based approach promises to dramatically accelerate innovation in biological research and biotechnology, including therapeutics, diagnostics and biomanufacturing.

Eugit Therapeutics targets the issue of non-specific drugs that cause toxicity and clinical trial failures, affecting millions with tissue-specific inflammatory diseases. TAGHOME delivers drugs with precision to diseased tissues using T cell receptors, enhancing safety and improving efficacy. Our initial focus is on the 3.1 million U.S. individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, aiming to initiate clinical trials within two years. Cofounded by George Church (Harvard) and funded by Y Combinator (S22).

Birch Biosciences engineers enzymes for plastic recycling using synthetic biology and machine learning. Our enzymes function as high performance “molecular scissors” that efficiently break down plastic polymers into chemical building blocks that can be used to manufacture high quality recycled plastic products. Today, plastic manufacturing is unsustainable and a major driver of climate change. Birch Biosciences is developing an economical end-to-end plastic recycling process that reduces carbon emissions by 70% and enables a circular plastic economy.

Founded in 2022 and based in San Diego, California, Cisterna Biologics is a technology company. It aims to solve some of the challenges currently facing the biotech industry to develop mRNA-based therapeutics – quality, quantity, longevity and cost of mRNA. As mRNA technology matures, it becomes imperative that these issues are solved so we can fully explore mRNA's endless possibilities as a therapeutic. Cisterna uses proprietary technologies to either remove a contaminant at its source or replace the source itself. For example, to remove double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), we use ribozymes - molecular scissors - to precisely cut the mRNA at its 3’ end. This assures not only 3’ homogeneity, but also eliminates dsRNA, which are primarily produced due to self-templated additions at the 3’ end. Utilizing a PCR-like system to amplify the DNA template in large quantities eliminates the requirement for plasmid enrichment in bacteria, the prime source of endotoxin contamination. These are just a few examples of Cisterna’s powerful technologies being used to achieve our goal of 10x higher quality mRNA for therapeutic application.

We build software to manage, analyze, and optimize bioprocessing data. Our initial customers are bio-industrial companies, who produce various products in bioreactors.

Engage Bio has developed Tethosomes, a new class of non-viral DNA which finally unleashes potent, durable, redosable, and scalable genetic medicine. Engage’s Tethosome platform solves the two key hurdles that have held back the field of non-viral DNA: potency and toxicity. Using proven LNP technology, we deliver a therapeutic DNA and an mRNA encoding our proprietary Tethosome protein. This protein localizes DNA to the nucleus, increasing expression by over 100-fold. Critically, our Tethosome platform is invisible to immune sensors which detect foreign DNA and which can cause lethal immune reactions. This allows us to safely deliver potent DNA, re-dose when needed, and titrate expression to optimal levels.

transforming degraded land into high quality environmental assets using end to end operational expertise and precision breeding.

Proteins are the most advanced nanotechnology we know of. At Adaptyv, we’re building a fully automated protein foundry to allow you to synthesize and test any protein you design.

Humane Genomics has developed a platform to engineer cancer killing viruses. We have taken a first principles approach to design and make oncolytic viral therapies. Using a highly lytic RNA virus engineered with "2 factor authentication" (using selective infection and selective replication) they have an on-target to off-target kill ratio > 1000. We are working on our first indication, pediatric liver cancer (hepatoblastoma), with our partners at Texas Children's Hospital, who are world leading experts. We have in vivo (mouse) data showing safety and currently developing efficacy data and are showing 50% reduction in tumor volume.

Abalone Bio is tackling challenging undrugged targets underlying diseases affecting millions, focusing first cell-specific antibody drugs to treat obesity and metabolic disease without the GI side effects that cause 25% of GLP-1 drug patients to quit after 1 year. + High throughput experimental measurement uniquely leverages AI/ML: We’ve engineered cells to measure antibodies for pharmacological activity, not just structure or binding like others, 100 million at a time, 100X+ the throughput of others. With our large, proprietary activity datasets, we uniquely leverage ML to both unlock the discovery of rare hits and generate optimized hits for challenging targets, starting with G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) + Proven success: We have developed antibody agonists (activators) for 2 out of the 8 G-protein coupled receptors ever drugged by biotech. + Pharma traction: We’ve secured 3 partnerships with $3M in revenue and $125M in downstream value. + Externally validated science: We’ve been awarded $7M in non-dilutive grant funding for platform and program development.

ZBiotics is a synthetic biology company founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company bioengineers probiotic bacteria for nutraceutical and other applications. They launched the world's first genetically engineered probiotic in 2019 – a probiotic that breaks down a toxic byproduct of alcohol. They are currently developing a pipeline of additional engineered probiotics for other consumer health applications.

Founded in 2010, Lygos is providing biotechnology solutions for today’s renewable chemical challenges. They engineer microbes to convert sugars into high-value, industrial chemicals, targeting compounds where biological production is cost-advantaged over petrochemical production.

Today, biologists spend too much time pipetting by hand. We think biologists should have robots to do pipetting for them. People doing science should be free of tedious benchwork and repetitive stress injuries. They should be able to spend their time designing experiments and analyzing data. That's why we started Opentrons. We make robots for biologists. Our mission is to provide the scientific community with a common platform to easily share protocols and reproduce each other's results. Our robots automate experiments that would otherwise be done by hand, allowing our community to spend more time pursuing answers to some of the 21st century’s most important questions.