DALLAS — A Dallas-based biotechnology company has received some high-profile backing.
Movie director Peter Jackson has invested $10 million Colossal Biosciences, which is attempting to save endangered species and bring back to life extinct species like dodo birds, Tasmanian tigers and woolly mammoths.
Jackson, a film director and screenwriter from New Zealand, directed and produced blockbuster films like the "Lord of the Rings" series and the 2005 "King Kong."
He said his investment, made with his partner Fran Walsh, is intended to support conservation, according to Bloomberg.
Colossal Biosciences was founded in 2021 by CEO Ben Lamm and the geneticist George Church, who gained great renown as one of the scientists who initiated the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005.
The company launched in Dallas with $15 million in seed funding and 19 full-time employees but has grown significantly in the past few years while attracting considerable media attention and financial backing. It has now raised a total of $235 million, according to Bloomberg. Other backers include Chris Hemsworth, Paris Hilton, Tom Brady and Tiger Woods, Forbes reported.
Colossal is one of the few "unicorns" in Dallas-Fort Worth — a privately held startup with a valuation of at least $1 billion. It raised $150 million at a $1.45 billion valuation in 2023.
Colossal scientists are working to use advances in technology, genetics and biosciences to protect species from extinction. The company also hopes to be the first to successfully use CRISPR technology in the "de-extinction" of lost species, according to its website.
Colossal has more than 60 scientists and researchers, according to its website, and four primary lab locations in Dallas; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Boston and Melbourne, Australia.
