February 24, 2021
Ena Singh has helped Zymergen close more than $1B in equity financing and $100M in debt since joining Zymergen as vice president of finance in 2014, fueling the company’s early growth, testing, de-risking, and product development.
Singh’s promotion comes as Zymergen moves into commercial and operational scaling, following the $300M in new investment last year, which has further accelerated their discovery and production of novel, high-performance materials.
“Ena has a proven track record earning the confidence of some of the leading and most demanding global investors to embrace the power and opportunity of biofacturing,” says Josh Hoffmann, Zymergen CEO. “Our business is not your typical cloud or biotech platform, and Ena has charted a masterful financial course for a new kind of science and technology company. She is the right person to lead financial strategy for our next chapter, focusing on expanding our commercial operations and sales.”
Ena Singh previously served as SVP of asset management at Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s $230B sovereign wealth fund, where she led complex semiconductor investments involving specialized manufacturing and unique investment and scaling models that are a direct parallel for Zymergen’s biofacturing platform.
Previously, she was the VP of technology investment banking at Merrill Lynch and an analyst for Latin American investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney. She earned a BA in economics at Cornell University and an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management.
“Ena’s ability to seamlessly move between investors and customers, coupled with her deep understanding of Zymergen’s business model and technology platform, has garnered enthusiastic support from the board and investors alike,” said Sandi Peterson, Zymergen board member and former Group Worldwide Chairwoman of Johnson & Johnson. “She brings the right experience at the right time to lead Zymergen’s expansion into commercial markets.”
“In seven years, Zymergen has grown from an idea to a thriving platform company, with one product in market and many more on the way,” said Singh. “Zymergen is winning customer confidence that we can discover breakthrough materials, and also scale and deliver them to demanding markets like electronics, consumer care and agriculture. Innovators seek new materials to accomplish today’s toughest challenges — and Zymergen’s biofacturing platform is delivering.”
Based on our early experience, Zymergen develops and launches high-performance products more sustainably and for a fraction of the cost and time that it typically takes using legacy petrochemical techniques.
A unique combination of biology, chemistry, software and automation fuels Zymergen’s high-throughput biodiscovery engine, enabling the company to discover, design and commercialize new materials at unprecedented speed.
