In Florida, Amyris, Fluid Quip Technologies, Praj Industries and MetGen have taken the lead in early voting in the 50 Hottest Companies in Bio+Engineering for 2021. The Digest released the early-voting totals from Subscriber Voting — which do not yet include Invited International Selector votes.

Private Companies on the rise, National Labs disappoint

Companies such as Ginkgo BioWorks, Zymergen, LanzaTech, ICM, Genomatica and Novozymes were prominent in the early ballots as readers placed much higher ratings on private companies than public laboratories. In some cases, individual consultants rated higher than national labs in the early voting. Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore, PNNL, NREL and Argonne made the top 50 in early voting but in many cases lower than expected in the voting to date. JBEI, the Joint Genome Institute and the Agile Biofoundry also made the top 50 in early voting.

Early votes only warning

“I think we’ve learned in 2020 not to place undue emphasis on the early ballots,” said Digest editor and publisher Jim Lane. “The final tallies are more than 3 weeks away and there will be differences between vote totals today and at the finish. Still, it is great to see lots of fresh faces doing well in the early ballots.”

Subscriber balloting

Hot 50 voting continues through Friday, December 18th, 2020 at 5pm ET. This year there are Hot 50 rankings for Fuels & Chemicals, Agriculture & Nutrition and Bio+Engineering, to reflect the diversification underway throughout the sector. All Hot 50 rankings will be announced on Monday December 30th in The Digest, and we will honor the organizations, their suppliers, industrial partners, investors and team at the annual Hot Party at ABLC 2020 in Washington DC, on March 18th, 2021.

For the Hot 50, subscribers will receive a link to their official ballot in each e-mail newsletter issue of The Digest published between Monday, November 20th and Friday, December 18th, 2020.

The 50 Hottest Organizations in Bio+Engineering 2021 – early voting results