In announcing the deal, Colossal said the acquisition combines Colossal\u2019s genetic engineering platform with Viagen\u2019s cloning expertise and proprietary technologies originally licensed from Scotland\u2019s Roslin Institute, the lab that cloned Dolly the sheep. Neither company disclosed financial terms.<\/p>\n
Viagen, founded in Austin, brings an established commercial operation with cloning success rates approaching 80% across multiple species\u2014dramatically higher than the roughly 2% average cited in published studies, according to Colossal. The company is among the few in the world to have successfully cloned endangered species, including the black-footed ferret and the critically endangered Przewalski\u2019s horse.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo other company comes close to what Viagen has achieved,\u201d said Ben Lamm, Colossal co-founder and CEO. \u201cTheir unmatched expertise and cloning technology stack have become the world\u2019s standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cElizabeth Ann,\u201d the first cloned black-footed ferret, represents a genetic line that had been lost for more than 30 years. [Photo: Viagen Pets and Equine]<\/p>\n
Moonshots, mission, and money<\/p>\n
Viagen\u2019s established pet and equine cloning operations bring a mature commercial arm to Colossal\u2019s portfolio, complementing its moonshot efforts to rewild extinct species and build the world\u2019s first large-scale genetic \u201cBioVaults<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Viagen charges approximately $50,000 to clone a dog or cat and $85,000 for horses, according to Trends<\/a>, a publication of the American Animal Hospital Association. The company has cloned thousands of animals over its 25-year history.<\/p>\n According to the publication, Viagen is the only company based in the United States offering commercial pet cloning services.<\/p>\n Viagen has experience cloning a wide variety of non-primate mammals, including cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, white-tailed deer, dogs, cats, and horses\u2014over 15 species in total. [Image: Colossal, Viagen Pets and Equine]<\/p>\n Beyond its commercial operations, Viagen created two critically endangered Przewalski\u2019s horses in 2020 and 2023 from tissue that had been frozen at the San Diego Zoo since 1980. The company has cultured and biobanked genetic material from more than 40 species, including 22 that are threatened or endangered.<\/p>\n Viagen President Blake Russell<\/p>\n Blake Russell, Viagen\u2019s president, who will stay on to lead the company as a Colossal subsidiary, has spent 25 years in animal genetics. \u201cJoining forces with Colossal gives Viagen the scale, resources, and shared vision to expand what we can do,\u201d Russell said. Colossal is the only de-extinction company and a leader in biotechnology.<\/p>\n Russell expects the combination will accelerate breakthroughs in genetic preservation, animal health, and endangered species recovery \u201cat a scale that simply wasn\u2019t possible on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n Biology meets software engineering<\/p>\n For Lamm, a billionaire entrepreneur who built five software companies before Colossal, the acquisition solves a specific problem. He\u2019s impatient, and biology is slow.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not a patient person,\u201d Lamm said last week at Dallas\u2019s Venture Dallas conference. \u201cSome of the species take anywhere from nine to 22 months. I wish everything could grow in 20 days, but it is very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Viagen\u2019s capabilities offer immediate wins while Colossal\u2019s longer-term projects, like the 22-month mammoth gestation period, play out.<\/p>\n Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal Biosciences, talks de-extinction, AI, and what it takes to \u201crun toward critics\u201d during a fireside chat with Bloomberg\u2019s Julie Fine at Venture Dallas, held October 30 at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. [Photo: Grant Miller Photography\/Venture Dallas]<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a deeper strategy at work. At Venture Dallas, Lamm described Colossal\u2019s approach to de-extinction as looking \u201cmore like software engineering than traditional biology.\u201d The company uses AI<\/a> to model comparative genomics, design precise gene edits, and compress timelines. \u201cWithout AI, our projects would take 50-plus years,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n That shift reflects what Lamm sees as a big change in the field itself. \u201cI think that in the next 10 years, it\u2019ll be 90% engineering and 10% discovery versus what it was the last 50 years,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n Making that shift hasn\u2019t been easy. \u201cThe hardest thing we do at Colossal is to train academic scientists for industry\u2014how to use JIRA,\u201d Lamm said, about the project management software standard in tech companies.\u00a0 \u201cI always run Colossal like a software company.\u201d<\/p>\n His team of scientists and engineers work side by side, treating species reconstruction like product development cycles, complete with version control, testing models, and iterative validation.<\/p>\n The approach has already produced striking results. Colossal has analyzed more than 100 woolly mammoth<\/a> genomes, some dating back over a million years, to guide its gene-editing work. In its dodo project<\/a>, scientists have successfully edited chicken embryos to carry the primordial germ cells of a pigeon, an early step toward creating a surrogate bird that could one day lay dodo-like offspring.<\/p>\n The company has also announced the birth of three \u201cdire wolves\u201d<\/a>\u2014Romulus and Remus in 2024 and Khaleesi in early 2025\u2014engineered to express traits of the extinct dire wolf. And in the lab, Colossal validated its mammoth gene work by creating two genetically modified mice, whose long, coarse coats mimic mammoth hair.<\/p>\n Running toward the controversy<\/p>\n The acquisition of Viagen extends Colossal\u2019s work into pet cloning, an area that has at times drawn ethical questions from animal welfare groups about health and welfare standards.<\/p>\n Colossal has encountered its own scrutiny from the scientific community. Some experts have questioned whether the company\u2019s work constitutes true \u201cde-extinction\u201d or creates proxy species\u2014the dire wolves, for instance, are genetically edited gray wolves.<\/p>\n Ben Lamm with a \u201cde-extincted\u201d dire wolf pup. Critics have challenged the label, but Lamm calls it \u201ca semantic question, not a scientific one.\u201d [Photo: Colossal Biosciences]<\/p>\n But Lamm is comfortable pushing boundaries<\/a>\u2014and has a track record of turning skeptics into allies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attitude that we had since day one, of like running towards critics, has helped us,\u201d he said at Venture Dallas. \u201cIt\u2019s not really our job to persuade anyone. We\u2019re going to do what we\u2019re going to do. We\u2019re pretty convicted about it.\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed to his own chief science officer as proof the strategy works. \u201cBeth Shapiro wrote a book that said, How do you clone a mammoth? Spoiler: the book ends with \u2018you can\u2019t\u2019 \u2026 she wasn\u2019t our biggest fan when we launched,\u201d Lamm said. <\/p>\n Today, Shapiro leads Colossal\u2019s scientific efforts.<\/p>\n The approach seems to be working. When Colossal announced the dire wolves, the project generated 120 billion media impressions and 20,000 stories. Lamm told the Venture Dallas audience he expected only 20% positive coverage. The actual result? 68% positive.<\/p>\n Even the genetically modified mice<\/a> nicknamed Chip and Dale at SXSW in Austin became social media celebrities, with users creating meme coins and debating which mouse was \u201cbetter,\u201d according to Lamm.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Colossal \u201cwoolly mice,\u201d created to test mammoth gene edits, became social media favorites. [Photo: Business Wire]<\/p>\n Taking science to the people<\/p>\n Colossal has proven it can capture public attention. Its 2024 dire wolf announcement generated 120 billion media impressions and attracted celebrity investors including Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin.<\/p>\n Not everyone is convinced. Lamm estimates about 25% of academics oppose Colossal\u2019s methods, particularly its use of TikTok and Instagram to communicate directly with the public.<\/p>\n At Venture Dallas, Lamm described getting \u201cslaughtered\u201d in Australian papers when Colossal launched its Tasmanian tiger project. The critique? The company was putting content on social media instead of keeping it in scientific journals.<\/p>\n Lamm sees it differently. \u201cI think we\u2019re in the attention economy,\u201d he said at the conference. \u201cKids aren\u2019t reading Nature and Cell. Everyone else is on TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n That philosophy doesn\u2019t always go over well with scientists. Lamm recounted a recent call with 1,000 researchers where he made his case for popular science communication. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, look, the problem is people love science, they hate scientists,’\u201d Lamm told the Venture Dallas audience. \u201cAnd that didn\u2019t go over well on the call.\u201d<\/p>\n What Viagen brings<\/p>\n Beyond pet cloning, Viagen has built expertise in advanced reproductive technologies. In 2022, it began offering Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) services for horses\u2014a process that lets breeders select a foal\u2019s sex. The company also holds an exclusive U.S. and Canadian license for Sexed Semen Technology from ST Genetics.<\/p>\n A Przewalski\u2019s horse colt cloned by Viagen Equine for a San Diego Zoo conservation project, is pictured at five days old in Gainesville. [Photo: Elizabeth Arellano Photography\/Viagen]<\/p>\n According to Colossal, Viagen\u2019s milestones include creating two critically endangered Przewalski\u2019s horses in 2020 and 2023 from tissue cryopreserved at the San Diego Zoo since 1980\u2014a feat the company describes as proof of what combining advanced cloning and cryopreservation can do.<\/p>\n The company said it has also cultured and biobanked genetic material from more than 40 species, including 22 that are threatened or endangered, such as white and black rhinos and the Florida bonneted bat.<\/p>\n Shawn Walker, Viagen\u2019s chief science officer and a cloning expert for more than 20 years, described the partnership as \u201can extraordinary opportunity to apply our advanced cryopreservation and cloning techniques to the ambitious goals of de-extinction and species restoration.\u201d<\/p>\n Viagen\u2019s 25 employees will maintain their Texas operations while integrating into Colossal\u2019s technology platform. The company is headquartered in Cedar Park, with an equine division operating facilities in North Texas\u2019 Whitesboro and Ocala, Florida.<\/p>\n The companies\u2019 combined capabilities make possible what neither company could do alone. \u201cNobody has ever cloned a marsupial,\u201d Lamm told D CEO, referencing Colossal\u2019s Tasmanian tiger de-extinction project<\/a>. Now the \u201cgreat brains<\/a>\u201d at Viagen are working on it, too.<\/p>\n Female black-footed ferret Elizabeth Ann was cloned in a Viagen collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the conservation non-profit Revive & Restore, and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance on the project. [Photo: Viagen\/Colossal]<\/p>\n Texas roots, global ambitions<\/p>\n Colossal has raised roughly $558 million in venture funding from an investor roster that spans Silicon Valley to Hollywood. Backers include Breyer Capital\u2019s Jim Breyer, Legendary Entertainment founder Thomas Tull, and Guggenheim\u2019s Mark Walter\u2014along with celebrity investors such as Chris Hemsworth, Paris Hilton, Tony Robbins, and the Winklevoss twins. Other high-profile backers include filmmaker Peter Jackson and venture firms like the United States Innovative Technology Fund. In addition to investing, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin\u2014whose novels inspired HBO\u2019s Game of Thrones\u2014also serves as a cultural advisor to the company.<\/p>\n The company has been oversubscribed in every funding round, according to Lamm. That\u2019s a sign of investor confidence in what he calls \u201ca mission as much as a business.\u201d<\/p>\n But Lamm is realistic about the challenges. \u201cAnybody tells you they don\u2019t have trouble raising money is just lying,\u201d he said at Venture Dallas. \u201cRaising money is hard in every category.\u201d<\/p>\n What makes Colossal\u2019s pitch unusual, potentially harder, is its commitment to giving away half its intellectual property. \u201c100 percent of the technologies that we make that have an application to conservation, we open source to the world for free,\u201d Lamm explained at the conference. \u201cSo imagine that as a business, as part of your business model, half of the technologies we\u2019re going to give away.\u201d<\/p>\n The Viagen acquisition could help balance that equation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lamm has an unusual philosophy for a venture-backed CEO. At Venture Dallas, he posed a hypothetical. \u201cIf this company makes a trillion dollars, and you do everything you said, except bring back the mammoth. How do you feel? And I\u2019d say, I think it\u2019s complete failure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I think [about] the promise we made to people in random classrooms in Middle America,\u201d Lamm said. \u201cTo me, that promise is as big as a promise we make to an investor that gives us $300 million.\u201d<\/p>\n Building a platform, not just a project<\/p>\n The Viagen acquisition is the latest move in Colossal\u2019s evolution to diversified biotechnology platform.<\/p>\n Lamm points to Colossal\u2019s spinout strategy, which shows how Colossal\u2019s core research generates commercially valuable technologies beyond de-extinction itself. And it helps fund the mission work.<\/p>\n The company has already spun out two businesses worth over $100 million publicly, Lamm said at Venture Dallas. Breaking<\/a>, which develops technology to break down plastics, raised $10.5 million in seed funding last year. Form Bio<\/a>, a computational biology platform, secured $30 million in funding.<\/p>\n Colossal plans to spin off a third business over the next two years. This one is focused on artificial womb technology that could have applications in fertility treatment, according to TechCrunch.<\/p>\n \u201cWe both don\u2019t like the word \u2018impossible’\u201d<\/p>\n At Venture Dallas, Lamm revealed he still spends seven hours a week talking with George Church, his Colossal co-founder, the Harvard geneticist who had worked on the mammoth project for eight years before the startup launched.<\/p>\n Those weekly conversations rarely go as planned. \u201cYesterday, we had a 90-minute call. There was supposed to be 30 minutes. We had one topic to talk about. We still didn\u2019t talk about it, because we go off,\u201d Lamm said at the conference. \u201cWe go to strange places occasionally.\u201d<\/p>\n Colossal Biosciences co-founders Ben Lamm and George Church aim to \u201cde-extinct\u201d the woolly mammoth and other long-lost creatures. [Photo: Colossal]<\/p>\n Their partnership began after Lamm called Church to discuss building a software company around synthetic biology. After Church quickly answered his initial question, Lamm asked what project Church would pursue with unlimited capital. Church\u2019s answer was immediate: He wanted to bring back the woolly mammoth and use those technologies to save critically endangered species.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter what he was being talked about, whether it was next gene sequencing or CRISPR technologies, there was this mammoth through line,\u201d Lamm recalled at Venture Dallas. \u201cAnd the minute people asked about it, you could see his change in demeanor \u2026 he got so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n A week later, Lamm was in Church\u2019s lab, convinced.<\/p>\n \u201cWe both don\u2019t like the word \u2018impossible,’\u201d Lamm said at Venture Dallas. \u201cWhen you meet someone who\u2019s the father of synthetic biology and he tells you that nothing\u2019s impossible, it\u2019s kind of hard not to get sucked into that.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Lamm hinted at more to come. \u201cI think it\u2019s highly likely we will see more interesting technology spin-outs,\u201d he told the Venture Dallas audience. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019ll also see interesting new forms of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss what\u2019s next. Subscribe\u00a0to\u00a0Dallas\u00a0Innovates.<\/p>\n Track Dallas-Fort Worth\u2019s business and innovation landscape with our curated news in your inbox Tuesday-Thursday.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \tR E A D\u00a0\u00a0 N E X T\t<\/p>\n \t The Dallas decacorn is scaling its de-extinction pipeline with indigenous leadership, a New\u202fZealand subsidiary, and economic models for species preservation, including ecotourism opportunities. Filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson helped connect the collaborators, Colossal CEO Ben Lamm says.<\/p>\n \t In one of his first deep interviews since Colossal’s dire wolf debut made global noise, Ben Lamm joins the TechStuff podcast to talk mammoths, backlash, and why he’s not here to play it safe.<\/p>\n \t North Texas has plenty to see, hear, and watch.\u00a0Here are our editors’ picks. Plus, you’ll find more selections to “save the date.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Viagen_Expertise.jpg\")
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