You asked about Industrial Bio
654 people built something like it. 85 are gone.
That is 14% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 49 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2014-06-01 | Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. · ginkgobioworks.com | acquired |
| 2017-01-01 | YCSolugen Decarbonizing the chemicals industry. · solugen.com | still up |
| 2017-06-01 | Turning food waste into Biochar to remove CO2 from the atmsophere · releaf.africa | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | Next-generation DNA synthesis using enzymes · ansabio.com | still up |
| 2016-01-01 | YCLygos Lygos engineers yeast to convert sugar into high-value industrial… · lygos.com | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | Foundation models and autonomous chambers for plant biology · urbankisaan.com | still up |
| 2019-01-01 | Unlocking the utility of genomics for the world. · voltalabs.com | still up |
| 2018-01-01 | We grow cells for biotech companies. · culturebiosciences.com | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | maximizing biomass on low quality land · livingcarbon.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | Robots that automate the everyday tasks of microbiologists. · reshapebiotech.com | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | Next-gen ingredients to decarbonize consumer products, starting w/… · c16bio.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | We make unmakeable proteins with radical advanced biomanufacturing. · futurefields.io | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | Makes guilt-free plastics from food waste · genecis.co | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | YCMytos Robotic human cell manufacturing · mytos.bio | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | YC64x Bio Enabling next generation medicines. A comprehensive platform and… · 64xbio.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCInvert Data analytics software for biomanufacturing. · invertbio.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | YCKingdom Clinically-validated ingredients from natural microbes · kingdomsuperculture.com | still up |
| 2018-01-01 | YCOvipost Automated insect farming · ovipost.com | gone |
| 2018-06-01 | Fermentation-derived natural products to solve health problems · cbthera.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | Impossible foods of seafood. · currentfoods.com | acquired |
| 2019-06-01 | boostbiomes.com | gone |
| 2015-01-01 | We design and build microbes to make chemicals greener at lower cost. · imicrobes.com | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | Rebellyous Foods is a food manufacturing technology and production… · rebellyous.com | still up |
| 2022-06-01 | YCALT TEX Biodegradable and carbon neutral textiles, engineered from food waste. · thealttex.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | We make carbon negative chemicals from CO2 using fermentation · phasebiolabs.com | still up |
| 2022-06-01 | We recycle plastic using engineered enzymes · birchbiosciences.com | still up |
| 2019-01-01 | Shiok Meats is a cell-based clean shrimp company, the first of its… · shiokmeats.com | acquired |
| 2021-01-01 | Tasty and scalable cultivated meat at price parity · orbillion.com | acquired |
| 2022-01-01 | We stop cows from burping methane. · alga.bio | still up |
| 2023-06-01 | Farm Genetics Made Easy - Using DNA and Software · feanixbio.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Making 'REAL' Cow and Human Milk! · unrealmilk.com | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | Gen-AI Designed Enzymes for Pharmaceutical Innovation · pando.bio | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | Volumetric builds living multicellular tissues with a focus on the… · volumetricbio.com | acquired |
| 2020-06-01 | YCRarebird Elevating mental health to be a part of your daily coffee ritual. · rarebird.coffee | still up |
| 2024-06-01 | YCACX Next-generation biocides for sustainable agriculture at scale · acxtherapeutics.com | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | YCBLUUMBIO We make bacteria and plants that clean up pollution. · bluumbio.com | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | YCShiru Shiru leverages ML to create proteins to feed the world sustainably. · shiru.com | still up |
| 2026-06-01 | YCMolagri Resistance free pesticides. · molagri.com | still up |
| 2024-06-01 | Enzyme design models. · ligo.bio | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCSynvivia Synvivia applies chemical control over cell behavior · synvivia.com | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | Using DNA to store data. · kernsystems.com | still up |
| 2026-09-01 | Maximum information per experiment, minimum experiments per conclusion · halmoslabs.com | still up |
| 2026-06-01 | Building robots to automate wetlabs · neuromorphic.vision | still up |
| 2025-06-01 | AI infrastructure for biosecurity · twentytwo.bio | still up |
| 2025-06-01 | Implantable microchips and AI for cattle monitoring · nexa.farm | acquired |
| 2026-09-01 | Embodied Scientific Intelligence · superradiant.co | still up |
| 2024-06-01 | YC1849 bio Engineering microbes for miners to unlock billions in trapped metal · 1849.bio | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | Bioengineered kidneys for patients with kidney failure · trestlebio.com | still up |
| 2015-01-01 | YC20n Using AI to predict biochemistry for manufacturing and therapeutics · 20n.com | gone |
| 2024-01-01 | YCRelari Building dexterous robots that learn from human biomechanics · relari.ai | still up |
| 2023-06-01 | Genetically engineering plants for disease resistance. · ohmicbiosciences.com | still up |
| 2026-06-01 | Frontier grows scalable biological brains as an ML training substrate · frontier.site | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Technologies for scaling up cultured/clean meat production · micromeat.com | gone |
| 2018-06-01 | dairy reinvented from plants · sperofoods.co | gone |
| 2014-01-01 | YCCruise Self-driving cars. · getcruise.com | acquired |
| 2016-01-01 | Building humanity’s multiplanetary future. · relativityspace.com | still up |
| 2012-06-01 | Unlocking the power of biotech with modern software for modern science · benchling.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | YCTractian Physical AI for asset-heavy industries · tractian.com | still up |
| 2016-01-01 | YCAstranis Advanced satellites for high orbits. · astranis.com | still up |
| 2022-03-24 | bionic-reading.com | still up |
How this compares
Y Combinator reports its own outcomes, including acquisitions. The other two are judged by asking the domain, so they are not measured the same way and are never averaged together.
Older launches have had longer to die, so this slope is expected. A year that broke it would mean something is wrong with the checking.
The register re-probes every domain it holds. Some that answered last month stop answering. We send that list — what went quiet, and what it was — once a month. Nothing else.
How this was made. Show HN entries are every post from 2021 to 2023 with at least five points that linked to its own domain; code hosts and free hosting are excluded, because a repository outlives the effort behind it. Product Hunt entries needed 100 votes — a far higher bar, so they are the promoted top slice rather than a like-for-like sample. Both are judged by asking the domain whether it still answers: gone means it no longer resolves, refuses the connection, serves a parking page, or says plainly that it shut down. An HTTP error is not counted as gone — a server answering 404 is one somebody still pays for, and an audit of 25 gone-calls found two such sites alive with only a moved homepage. Y Combinator entries use the status YC publishes itself, which is why only those can say acquired. Squatted domains — a lapsed name now serving somebody else's site — are not detected, so these figures run slightly low.