Altimeter, Franklin Templeton Lead $100 Million Series F in Benchling

<p><strong><span class&equals;"xn-location">SAN FRANCISCO<&sol;span><&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; <u>Benchling<&sol;u>&comma; developer of the R&amp&semi;D Cloud powering the biotechnology industry&comma; has raised <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;100 million<&sol;span> in Series F funding at a <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;6&period;1 billion<&sol;span> valuation&period; The round was co-led by new investor <span class&equals;"xn-person">Franklin Templeton<&sol;span> and existing investor Altimeter Capital&comma; and joined by new investors Tiger Global and Lone Pine Capital&comma; as well as other existing investors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Benchling plans to use the funding to continue investing in product development and global expansion&comma; particularly its presence in EMEA&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Benchling&&num;8217&semi;s growth is fueled by the rapid rise of biotechnology&comma; one of the world&&num;8217&semi;s fastest-growing industries&period; McKinsey estimates that over 60&percnt; of inputs to the global economy can be biologically produced&comma; representing the potential for <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;2<&sol;span> to <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;4 trillion<&sol;span> per year of direct economic impact over the next two decades across pharmaceuticals&comma; agriculture&comma; food&comma; industrial fuels and materials&comma; and consumer packaged goods&period; Modern R&amp&semi;D holds the key to unleashing biotechnology&&num;8217&semi;s potential to radically transform our world — scientists must be empowered to discover and develop the next generation of medicines and biologically derived products&comma; and ultimately get them to market faster than ever before&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As biotechnology companies come under increased pressure to deliver breakthroughs&comma; they are turning to modern software to digitize all their scientific processes and centralize their data&period; Customer demand for Benchling&&num;8217&semi;s R&amp&semi;D Cloud has surged and the company recorded triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth in its most recent fiscal quarter&comma; with a 70&percnt; increase in year-over-year customer count&period; Expansion within existing accounts also contributed significantly to Benchling&&num;8217&semi;s growth&comma; resulting in a 169&percnt; dollar-based net expansion rate — among the highest in the software industry&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it&period; Our customers&comma; spanning nearly every major industry&comma; are engineering more effective medicines&comma; nutritious foods&comma; and sustainable crops&comma; materials&comma; and fuels to address humanity&&num;8217&semi;s most pressing challenges&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Sajith Wickramasekara<&sol;span>&comma; CEO and co-founder of Benchling&period; &&num;8220&semi;These challenges are global and so are our customers&period; With this new investment&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ll continue growing our teams and customer base in the U&period;S&period; and <span class&equals;"xn-location">Europe<&sol;span>&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ll also keep broadening our platform&&num;8217&semi;s capabilities to support our customers&&num;8217&semi; full product lifecycle&comma; from research through to development and manufacturing&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><b>The next generation of scientists are adopting Benchling across both academia and industry&colon;<&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Benchling&&num;8217&semi;s R&amp&semi;D Cloud is used by over 600 companies&comma; including some of the world&&num;8217&semi;s most innovative biotech companies&comma; including 22 of the 50 largest global biopharma companies&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>According to <i>Nature Biotechnology<&sol;i>&comma; 2020 was one of the best years on record for biotech financing&period; More than one in four biotech IPOs in 2020 and 2021 have come from companies running R&amp&semi;D on Benchling&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>As Benchling has always offered a free community edition for academics&comma; the company&&num;8217&semi;s community has grown to over 200&comma;000 scientists at more than 7&comma;000 academic and research institutions&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Nearly half of the world&&num;8217&semi;s diseases can be addressed with modern biology but producing biologics is complex&comma; requiring an enormous amount of manual data capture and tracking across multiple teams and disparate systems&period; Benchling&&num;8217&semi;s unified R&amp&semi;D platform allows us to capture&comma; standardize&comma; and share data so we can learn from past experiments and make smarter decisions faster&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Frantz Gabeau<&sol;span>&comma; Senior Research Scientist at Gilead&period; &&num;8220&semi;With Benchling&comma; our scientists spend 63&percnt; less time on administrative tasks&comma; freeing up more time for research and innovation&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve also improved our timelines as we can now forecast&comma; review&comma; approve&comma; and track studies twice as fast&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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