The upside case depends on productizing biology into renewable tools and automation, not more bespoke projects. If cash burn stays controlled, a modest multiple uplift is plausible by 2031.

If the turnaround converts Ginkgo from lumpy, bespoke cell-engineering into repeatable tools (automation + software control + datasets) while keeping biosecurity on multi-year renewals, revenue quality can improve enough to earn a modest re-rate despite biology’s inherent variability and higher support burden than pure software.

Beneficiary of AI-lowered cognition cost: winners orchestrate workflows, own data rights, and deliver trusted uptime; Ginkgo is building that control plane for wet labs plus mission-critical biosecurity.

The 5-year upside is less about winning more one-off biology programs and more about shifting mix toward repeatable, SLA-like products: automation deployments, orchestration software, and standardized datasets that customers renew because they reduce cycle time and improve reliability. If cost takeout holds and cash burn stays controlled, survivability improves and the market can pay a higher-quality revenue multiple. Versus tools-heavy peers, the multiple stays discounted due to services mix, biosecurity variability, and heavier support/ops intensity.

The main risk is failing to convert biology work into repeatable, renewable products: without that, fixed leases + support costs keep dilution risk high. Second-order risks are (1) biosecurity revenue variability from procurement/budget cycles, (2) concentration in a handful of large counterparties, and (3) competitive bundling by better-capitalized lab software/automation incumbents.

$10.88