As a pre-accelerator, iGEM Startups guides iGEMers in exploring, validating, and bringing their SynBio ideas to market. In 2024, the Venture Foundry Program has been a pivotal step for 300+ iGEMers, supporting them in evolving their scientific concepts into startups.

Meet Eric Herrera, the co-founder and CEO of Maverick Biometals, a finalist in the 2022 iGEM Startup Showcase in 2022 and Y Combinator S22 Cohort. Eric shared his remarkable entrepreneurship journey, starting with a single bench in a Baltimore basement to a 10,000 sq. ft. biotechnology laboratory. With a team of scientists from over 10 countries, Maverick Biometals is pioneering the production of lithium batteries and silicon semiconductors entirely through biological methods

2024 has been an incredible year for iGEM Startups, marked by notable funding trends among iGEM Alumni startups, particularly at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology (SynBio) within our ecosystem. This year alone, seven alumni startups have secured over $95 million in funding—from government grants to multimillion-dollar investments—highlighting the scalability and market potential of these groundbreaking technologies.

Exploring the sector of iGEM Startups 2024. We'd like to identify the key fields of our iGEM Startups Cohort and how this is implicated in the current emerging trends in synthetic biology to understand the evolving bioentrepreneurship landscape.

Ashwin Jainarayanan is a biofounder with a deep-rooted passion for advancing medical science through synthetic biology and immuno-oncology. Ashwin's journey of founding Granza Bio began during his PhD at the University of Oxford, when a serendipitous email mix-up connected him with Ashwin Nandakumar, who was working on another project at a nearby department. 

One of the standout success stories from this year’s iGEM Startups cohort is Paqta, a trailblazer biotech startup from Lima, Peru. Paqta’s co-founders shared their startup story and discussed current milestones with iGEM Startups, while offering their insights on the unique challenges and opportunities within the Peruvian and broader Latin American biotech sectors.

iGEM Startups Summer School helps 2024 iGEM teams to refine their entrepreneurship part in iGEM project and race for the Best Entrepreneurship Prize yet to give them a better idea of what they can do with their project post-iGEM competition.

The productive four-week Venture Creation Labs have officially concluded, with 82 startups onboarded from across the region!  Over the course of four weeks, our bioentrepreneurs delved into workshops, mentorship sessions, and pitching opportunities, emerging with newfound knowledge and refined strategies to drive their ventures forward.

Nicolas Krink, CEO BioHalo, joins us for the BioFounders Interview. This series delves into the firsthand stories of iGEMers venturing into entrepreneurship. Documenting challenges, opportunities, experiences, and lessons for other startup founders.

Imagine closing of the session with full of intense brainstorming and ideation with a midnight discussion that sparks ideas but also the birth of a startup. That's exactly the unique experience offered at the iGEM Startups BioHackathon. 

This year, iGEM Startups highlights an iGEM alumna and female founder. Meet Dr. Lydia Mapstone, an alumna of iGEM Edinburgh OG in 2017 and the founder of BoobyBiome, a FemTech startup dedicated to developing an intact breast milk microbiome for babies.

Your ideas, your iGEM projects—these could become reality through VCL. If you're uncertain about diving into entrepreneurship or unsure about kickstarting a startup, VCL might hold the answers.

Are you constantly brewing synbio ideas and longing for like-minded discussions? Or perhaps you're eager to meet potential co-founders and delve into the realms of the synbio market? Or maybe you want to discover new career opportunities that lie ahead in 2024?

The first BioInnovation Fair at the iGEM 2023 Grand Jamboree provided a platform for startups, innovators, and industry leaders to explore the future landscape of synthetic biology.

The iGEM 2023 Grand Jamboree's Startup Showcase was a burst of energy, featuring 17 dynamic startups from around the world at the #WorldExpoSynBio. Judges, seasoned in the field, were impressed by the ventures' potential in shaping the future bioeconomy.

We believe that to change the world for the better, BioFounders need to be empowered globally. That’s why we are excited to announce the BioInnovation Fair at the iGEM 2023 Grand Jamboree! Please join us at this thrilling event where you’ll come together with synbio industries, media, startups, incubators, investors, and other stakeholders to connect, network, and forge game-changing deals.

With rapid advancements in science and technology, synthetic biology stands as a field that is continually redefining innovation in biology.  From July 12-14, 2023, SynBio Africa hosted the SBA 2.0 Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity Conference in Africa at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Sandra shares her report of the event

EPIC’s Startup Showcase featured the top 15 iGEM Startups, who pitched their ideas in front of an audience and panel of judges at the iGEM 2022 Grand Jamboree. Here are some highlights and insights from the winner and finalists.

The iGEM 2022 teams have done amazing work in translating their projects into commercially viable products and services that could change the lives of many people by improving health, or combatting climate change, or addressing many other important, urgent world problems.

We invite you to meet the innovators who are shaping the future of the bioeconomy at iGEM EPIC’s Startup Showcase during the 2022 Grand Jamboree.

We invite you to launch your entrepreneurial journey with the iGEM EPIC Summer Bootcamp: a 3-day workshop that aims to train participants in the basics of entrepreneurship. This year’s EPIC Summer Bootcamp will be held on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of July from 14:00 to 16:00 UTC online on Zoom.

We had a truly amazing year - find out all about what EPIC has done and how we’ve helped foster a great ecosystem of biofounders from all around the world!

This year we sent Mélodie Dupré Chair of the iGEM Industry Network, (an After iGEM steering group who promote the effective communication between iGEMers & iGEM Industry Alumni) to represent the iGEM community and check out the worlds largest deeptech event - The Hello Tomorrow Global Summit 2021! We caught up with Mélodie to learn more about her experiences!

The synthetic biology ecosystem is a multifaceted one, with many different stakeholders that all serve to contribute in many ways to create a thriving community. In these 2 reports, we showcase the breadth of the community, ranging from the various non-profits that serve to increase accessibility to underserved communities, to the many startups and partners that work together with EPIC all around the world. We hope you will have an enjoyable time reading through the reports.

Its been an intense and productive few months at iGEM EPIC! Check out our post to hear from our committee heads and get a glimpse of what we’ve done so far!

The EPIC Venture Creation Labs concluded on 30th April, with over 30 teams from more than 10 continents undergoing our flagship entrepreneurship bootcamp.

EPIC has successfully kicked-off our first event of the year, a Bio-Hackathon during the weekend, March 20-21, 2021, with around 160 biofounders participating globally.

We caught up with Sofia Sigal-Passeck, Co-Founder and CEO of Uniphage who are working on eradicating plant based bacterial diseases using combined power of bacteriophages and AI. Uniphage was part of iGEM EPIC’s 2020 program and Venture Creation Labs and we wanted to catch up on any updates since joining the community last year.

We caught up with Gregory Segala, founder of FluoSphera, who are overall winners of the Toulouse White Biotechnology (TWB) Startup Day ‘Go for it’ competition earlier this month on Feb 3rd! We caught up with Gregory to learn more about his experiences and to share his insights from his founder journey.