Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. (DNA) Earnings
Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. is expected to report next earnings on November 5, 2026 (in NaN days), with a consensus EPS estimate of $-0.58. DNA has beaten EPS estimates in 3 of its last 12 reported quarters (average surprise +4.3% over the last four).
| Report date | EPS est | EPS actual | Surprise | Revenue | Rev. surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 5, 2026 | $-0.90 | $-0.75 | +16.2% | $20M | -16.2% |
| May 7, 2026 | $-1.21 | $-1.28 | -5.7% | $19M | -54.6% |
| Nov 6, 2025 | $-1.24 | $-1.45 | -16.9% | $39M | +3.4% |
| Aug 7, 2025 | $-1.44 | $-1.10 | +23.6% | $50M | +27.4% |
| Aug 8, 2024 | $-3.20 | $-3.20 | +0.0% | $56M | +24.9% |
| May 9, 2024 | $-3.20 | $-3.20 | +0.0% | $38M | -13.2% |
| Feb 29, 2024 | $-3.60 | $-3.60 | +0.0% | $35M | -24.5% |
| Mar 1, 2023 | $-12.00 | $-1.60 | +86.7% | $98M | +37.1% |
| Nov 14, 2022 | $-10.00 | $-16.00 | -60.0% | $66M | +10.0% |
| Aug 15, 2022 | $-2.00 | $-16.40 | -720.0% | $145M | +83.4% |
| May 16, 2022 | $-1.60 | $-2.00 | -25.0% | $168M | +59.4% |
| Nov 15, 2021 | $-1.60 | $-2.80 | -75.0% | $78M | +40.6% |
Source: company filings + earnings calendar. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Earnings call summary
Q2 FY2026 · August 5, 2026
AI summary of management’s prepared remarks and analyst Q&A. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Management highlights
### Core Strategic Priorities for 2026 - Focus all core technology investments on building out the autonomous lab product category to extend Ginkgo's competitive lead, aligned with the company's mission to make biology easier to engineer. - Expand the in-house Boston-based Nebula autonomous lab platform to accommodate the majority of Ginkgo's internal work, demonstrate the technology's capabilities to potential customers, and improve the economics of Ginkgo's service offerings. - Secure new autonomous lab sales to biopharma customers, U.S. national labs, and academic research institutions. - Continue reducing cash burn, with deeper improvements planned for the second half of 2026 following restructuring completed at the end of 2025. ### Autonomous Labs as a U.S. Competitiveness Imperative - Ginkgo frames autonomous labs as a solution to the rapid offshoring of early-stage biotech R&D to China, which currently captures over 50% of new biotech drug asset acquisitions and has eliminated bench science jobs in the U.S. Automation can match the low cost of offshore manual labor while keeping R&D domestic. - The company supports the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy's national strategy to advance AI-integrated autonomous science, including a $400 million NSF program for a national network of cloud-connected autonomous labs. - Ginkgo was recently selected to build new autonomous labs for MIT, Caltech, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern University, placing the technology in the hands of trainee scientists to drive future adoption. ### Nebula Autonomous Lab Capabilities - Ginkgo defines autonomous labs as flexible, fully automated systems capable of running custom, variable experiments without manual intervention (analogous to autonomous vehicles, versus inflexible fixed-automation work cells that only run identical protocols). The market for flexible manual lab bench work is 95% of total global biotech R&D spending ($60-$80 billion annually from pharma plus $40 billion from the NIH), a far larger opportunity than fixed automation. - Nebula was recently expanded to 105 RAC units (doubling its size in a 3-week deployment period, enabled by Ginkgo's standardized product design) and runs 24/7, currently supporting an average of 30 unique custom protocols per day from scientist users. Key benefits include 1/3 the space of a comparable manual lab, 4x higher equipment utilization, and built-in traceability required for AI-driven science. - Ginkgo offers potential customers the ability to test custom protocols on Nebula before purchasing an autonomous lab, shifting debugging work earlier in the sales process. ### New CRO Service Offering: Datapoints ADME-One - Ginkgo launched a new low-cost automated CRO service called ADME-One (under the Datapoints brand) to compete with offshore CRO providers like WuXi for standard small molecule ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) testing. The full 5-assay panel is priced at $199, compared to $1,000-$2,500 from Chinese vendors and $2,000-$5,000 from Western vendors, including partner-provided PK projection and compound management. - Ginkgo has completed third-party validation of the ADME-One assays, showing strong agreement with industry-standard results, and published a public open data set of 320 tested LOPAC library compounds for independent verification. The company plans to add automated plate-based chemical synthesis and anaerobic chemistry capabilities to expand its CRO offerings, targeting a larger share of offshore CRO demand.
Guidance
- Management reaffirmed the full year 2026 cash burn guidance range of $125 million to $150 million, which balances continued cost efficiency, ongoing investment in AI, robotics and software for autonomous labs, investment in the new Frontier Boston lab build-out, and maintenance of existing customer services. - The company does not provide revenue guidance for 2026 and is not currently breaking out revenue for the new autonomous lab and Datapoints segments.
Segment performance
Following the April 2026 divestiture of the biosecurity business (classified as discontinued operations), Ginkgo Bioworks operates as a single continuing segment. For Q2 2026, total revenue from continuing operations was $20 million, a 48% decrease compared to Q2 2025. Year-to-date (first half 2026) total revenue was $40 million, a 49% decrease year-over-year; excluding the $7.5 million non-cash 2025 BiomEdit agreement termination revenue, the year-over-year decrease is approximately 42%. R&D expense decreased 4% year-over-year to $30 million in Q2 2026, and G&A expense decreased 26% year-over-year to $12 million, driven by completed 2025 restructuring efforts. Net loss from continuing operations was $57 million in Q2 2026, compared to a $53 million loss in Q2 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $36 million in Q2 2026, compared to negative $25 million in Q2 2025, including $14 million in carrying costs for excess unoccupied lease space (up from $12 million year-over-year). Q2 2026 cash burn was $45 million, compared to $38 million in Q2 2025; first half 2026 total cash burn was $93 million, a 3% decrease from the same period in 2025. Excluding a one-time $14 million Google Cloud commitment payment in Q1 2026, first half 2026 cash burn saw a significant year-over-year reduction from restructuring efforts. The company held $302 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents as of quarter-end, plus an additional $87 million in restricted cash, and raised $17 million through an at-the-market equity program in Q2.
Risks & headwinds
- Excess unoccupied lease space continues to create material carrying costs ($14 million in Q2 2026), though this cost could be mitigated through future subleasing. - Autonomous lab technology is still being scaled and validated in new customer environments, and success with the initial NSF academic projects is required to drive broader demand from other research institutions. - Ginkgo is a new entrant to the competitive CRO market, and will need to prove its technical and cost competitiveness to capture market share from established offshore providers. - All forward-looking statements around autonomous lab adoption and growth are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, detailed in the company's SEC filings including its most recent 10-K.
Analyst Q&A
Q: What is the current revenue for the autonomous lab/RAC segment and the Datapoints segment, and how should investors think about order funnel, backlog, and revenue recognition for the two businesses going forward?
A: Ginkgo does not provide revenue guidance or break out current segment revenue for the two new businesses. For large autonomous lab automation deals, most revenue (primarily hardware) is recognized upon completed delivery and installation, which has not yet occurred for the new recent university awards. Small ongoing SaaS and maintenance service revenue will begin after deployment. Datapoints CRO projects are smaller than Ginkgo's legacy large solutions projects, recognize revenue over the 3-9 month project timeline, and have shown strong early growth that is already partially reflected in Q2 2026 results.
Q: What is the repeat order rate for Datapoints and Cloud Lab solutions, and what is the average follow-on order value relative to initial order value?
A: Ginkgo does not break out these specific metrics at this time. The typical customer pattern starts with a small proof-of-concept order, followed by a much larger expanded deal if the customer is satisfied. ADME-One, the new low-cost CRO offering, has already attracted 16 new customers in its first 6 weeks, many of which are new Ginkgo logos, and will generate recurring steady orders as pharma companies continuously test new small molecule candidates, similar to the traditional CRO business model. AI data generation projects tend to be more campaign-based, but often lead to follow-on orders for additional training data.
Q: How does the recent NSF award to build 4 new university autonomous labs impact Ginkgo's outlook for academic demand? Is this demand only driven by NSF funding, or is this part of a broader trend, and how does revenue work for these projects?
A: Management views this award as the first step in a potential paradigm shift for academic biological research, which receives $40 billion annually in NIH funding alone plus additional funding from NSF and DARPA. If the initial batch of labs proves successful, management expects widespread FOMO among other research institutions, leading to additional demand from both new government grants and internal university or donor funding, as autonomous labs can reduce the high overhead cost of maintaining many small individual manual labs. The business model for these projects includes bulk revenue recognized on equipment delivery and installation, plus ongoing long-tail revenue from upfront custom work, post-install maintenance, and recurring software licensing.