Eric Wickramasekara was an undergrad at MIT when he came up with the idea for a cloud-based Crispr design tool to help scientists. Eight years later, Regeneron, Gilead and hundreds of other companies use its collaborative R&D software, and the company boasts a roaster of investors that includes Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Menlo Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Y Combinator. As many customers rush to come up with vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, Benchling is on call as needed—but has stopped pushing software updates to those whose projects require total lockdown.

Read more about the Next Billion Dollar Startups on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2020/05/28/next-billion-dollar-startups-2020/#2b4947d03f9f

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How A Tool For Scientists Became A Billion-Dollar Opportunity | Forbes