Press Releases
Benchling More than Doubles Customer Base for the Second Consecutive Year
The leading life sciences R&D cloud wins more than 150 new customers in 2019 with continued growth into enterprise market and expansion across new industries
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2019 — Benchling, the leading life sciences R&D cloud platform, announced a record-breaking year, adding more than 150 new clients to its roster with significant expansion of enterprise customers in 2019. The company has more than doubled its customer base for the past two years to fuel key breakthroughs in biopharmaceuticals, biofuels, biomaterials, and other consumer products.
Biopharma leads as Benchling's largest and fastest-growing customer sector, with many companies using the platform to power their research in modalities that span antibodies, cell therapy, gene editing, gene therapy and protein therapeutics. Benchling also saw strong initial deployments in a range of new industries, including biomaterials, energy, consumer goods, and food and beverage. New companies that adopted Benchling in 2019 include Arcus Biosciences, ArsenalBio, BP, Denali Therapeutics, Ginkgo Bioworks, Kallyope, Kite Pharma, Mammoth Biosciences, Pairwise and Vor Biopharma.
"More and more biopharma companies are adopting breakthrough technologies like CRISPR gene editing and unlocking incredible advances that will improve human life in ways that we couldn't imagine even two years ago," said Sajith Wickramasekara, CEO and co-founder at Benchling. "We're starting to see the impact of cutting-edge biotechnologies in other industries as well, with agriculture growing to become the second-largest industry that we work with. As Benchling continues to partner with larger companies and expand across numerous industries, it's an honor to support researchers developing novel therapeutics and other products that will change millions of lives."
"As a company dedicated to increasing the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, it is essential that we rapidly scale and interpret our scientific data," said Ian Miller, VP of Business Operations at Pairwise. "Engaging with us as a true partner, Benchling has brought design and supply chain-like capabilities to our R&D team in a manner that has greatly enhanced our business."
Scientists working in emerging fields like CRISPR, CAR-T immunotherapy and genetic engineering increasingly rely on Benchling's suite of cloud applications to design DNA, collaborate on experiments, manage research workflows and make critical R&D decisions. As novel biotechnologies have reshaped the life sciences, companies developing some of the most cutting-edge products across biopharma and industrial biotech have standardized on Benchling as their platform of choice. Within biopharma, Benchling saw the highest growth in clients developing cell therapies, followed by growth in clients developing protein therapeutics and clients developing antibody therapeutics.
"At ArsenalBio, we're building the next generation of programmable cell therapies to bring these curative treatments to many more patients. This involves extensive novel DNA design and construction work, and Benchling has created ideal tools for our teams to collaboratively complete these complex molecular projects," said Dr. Theo Roth, founding CSO and scientific co-founder. "It has accelerated the development of our gene-editing technologies and the synthetic DNA sequences that will power the next generation of cellular therapies."
Earlier this year, Benchling closed $34.5 million in Series C funding to extend its product lead and expand commercial relationships. The company also opened its Cambridge, MA, office in April.