DALLAS — Hold onto your butts.
If you thought Jurassic Park was “just a movie,” the concept of bringing pre-historic animals back to life is being worked on by a Dallas-based company.
Colossal Biosciences announced Wednesday it had raised $200 million in Series C funding round led by TWG Global for its mission to bring back the woolly mammoth, dodo and thylacine (also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger).
Since launching in September 2021, Colossal has raised $435 million in total funding, and this latest round of capital places the company at a $10.2 billion valuation, according to a press release.
The company said it would use the new capital “to continue to advance its genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare.”
Colossal said their teams – which consist of over 170 scientists and partners with labs in Boston, Dallas, and Melbourne, Australia – have made significant breakthroughs on all three of its main projects and is on schedule or even ahead of it to resurrect these animals.
“The technological advances we’re seeing in genetic engineering and synthetic biology are rapidly transforming our understanding of what’s possible in species restoration,” said Colossal’s Chief Science Officer Beth Shapiro. “While the path to de-extinction is complex, each step forward brings us closer to understanding how we might responsibly reintroduce traits from lost species. The real promise lies not just in the technology, but also in how we might apply these tools to protect and restore endangered species and ecosystems.”
Colossal’s work toward mammoth restoration has simultaneously advanced reproductive and genetic technologies that can help preserve endangered elephant species, while the dodo program is pioneering avian genetic tools that will benefit threatened bird species worldwide, the company said in its press release.
For more information about their projects, visit Colossal’s website here.