Leading R&D Cloud for biotech, now valued at $6.1BN, is doubling down on its European presence

Benchling, pioneer of the R&D Cloud powering the biotechnology industry, announces its continued European expansion, following a strong year of growth. The company achieved triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth in the market in its most recent fiscal quarter, with the number of customers in Europe increasing 184% from last year.

This expansion comes as Benchling reveals it has raised $100 million in Series F funding at a $6.1 billion valuation. The round was co-led by new investor Franklin Templeton and existing investor Altimeter Capital, and joined by new investors Tiger Global and Lone Pine Capital, as well as existing investors. Benchling will use the funding to continue expanding in Europe and further develop its cloud-based R&D platform, which accelerates the speed of scientific breakthroughs, helping biotechnology companies across industries to bring the next generation of medicines, food, and materials to market faster.

Benchling’s growth is fuelled by the rapid rise of biotechnology, one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Modern R&D holds the key to unleashing biotechnology’s potential to radically transform our world — scientists must be empowered to discover and develop the next generation of medicines and biologically derived products, and ultimately get them to market faster than ever before. 

Benchling’s ongoing European expansion is a strategic next step for the business to meet the increasing demand for innovative R&D from its 90+ customers in the region, including Alchemab Therapeutics, bit.bio, Cutiss AG, Galapagos NV, Kolibri, Lesaffre, PetMedix™, Sanofi, Selexis SA, Syngenta, and TATAA Biocenter. 

The company’s European team is over 60 people today, including leaders with significant experience building and scaling major technology companies. Over the next 12 months, Benchling expects to expand its European headquarters in Zurich and double its headcount in the region across all customer-facing functions, including sales, services, marketing, and support. Benchling was also one of three companies, including Moderna, to be awarded with a 2021 Tell Award, recognised by the Swiss authorities for its significant foreign direct investment in Switzerland.

As biotechnology companies come under increased pressure to deliver breakthroughs, they are turning to modern software to digitise all their scientific processes and centralise their data. 

“Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it. Europe is at the forefront of cutting-edge R&D and we are honoured to work with nearly 100 companies there, after establishing a presence in Zurich last year. We are excited to double down our investment in this important market,” said Sajith Wickramasekara, CEO and co-founder of Benchling. “Our customers, spanning nearly every major industry, are engineering more effective medicines, nutritious foods, and sustainable crops, materials, and fuels to address humanity’s most pressing issues. These challenges are global, so growth outside of the US is a strategic priority for us as we power modern, data-driven, and collaborative R&D.”

“Syngenta’s work relies on scale because our researchers test hundreds of thousands of seeds in different growth environments. When we discover viable candidates to address grower needs we must rapidly scale up seed stocks to enable testing in labs, greenhouses, and field trials around the world,” said Charlie Baxter, Head of Traits, Regulatory, and Product Safety at Syngenta. “Thanks to Benchling, we’ve said goodbye to paper and our global seeds R&D teams can work together efficiently on a single platform to standardize the development of seed candidates from the lab to the test field. It’s allowed us to rethink how we structure much of our work — accelerating new seed products to market.”

The next generation of scientists are adopting Benchling across both academia and industry:

Benchling’s R&D Cloud is used by over 600 companies, including some of the world’s most innovative biotech companies, including 22 of the 50 largest global biopharma companies.
The company’s community has grown to over 200,000 scientists at more than 7,000 academic and research institutions.

Since announcing its Series E $200M raise in April, Benchling has introduced new capabilities and solutions, including support for early development and RNA therapeutics. The company also hired Salesforce executive Lindsey Irvine as Chief Marketing Officer. 

About Benchling

Benchling is the pioneer of the R&D Cloud, software that powers the biotechnology industry. More than 200,000 scientists at over 600 companies and 7,000 research institutions globally have adopted Benchling's R&D Cloud to make breakthrough discoveries and bring the next generation of medicines, food, and materials to market faster than ever before. The R&D Cloud helps these organizations modernize their scientific processes and accelerate collaboration so they can convert the complexity of biology into world-changing results.