Zymergen co-founders Zach Serber, Josh Hoffman, and Jed Dean (Zymergen via website)

Zymer­gen's sud­den im­plo­sion shocked biotech. A lin­ger­ing loan could make things even worse

As for­mer syn­bio uni­corn Zymer­gen picks up the pieces from its spec­tac­u­lar im­plo­sion Tues­day, an out­stand­ing loan from Per­cep­tive Ad­vi­sors — the on­ly blue-chip biotech crossover in­vestor to touch Zymer­gen’s fundrais­ing ef­forts — could make the sit­u­a­tion worse, ac­cord­ing to pub­lic doc­u­ments.

In De­cem­ber 2019, more than a year be­fore Zymer­gen filed for what would even­tu­al­ly be­come a $500 mil­lion IPO, the “bio­fac­tur­ing” firm signed a $100 mil­lion cred­it fa­cil­i­ty with Per­cep­tive to help sup­ple­ment the near­ly $700 mil­lion the com­pa­ny had raised across four VC rounds.

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