This billion-dollar startup wants to bring back the dodo

A rare fragment of a Dodo femur bone is displayed for photographs next to an image of a member of the extinct bird species at Christie's auction house's premises in London, on March 27, 2013. Colossal Biosciences has raised an additional US$150mil from investors to develop genetic technologies that the company claims will help to bring back some extinct species, including the dodo and the woolly mammoth. Other scientists are skeptical that such feats are really possible, or even advisable for conservation. — AP

A biotechnology startup that promises to resurrect woolly mammoths is now the first “de-extinction unicorn”, with a valuation said to be over a US$1bil (RM4.26bil) before bringing back a single lost species. Colossal Biosciences, the Dallas-based startup, is making public a new round of investment this week that will help fund its effort to bring back perhaps the most famously extinct animal of them all: the dodo.

Reintroducing mammoths to Alaska or dodos to Mauritius sounds unrealistic, even silly, and has drawn scepticism from paleo-geneticists and other experts who worry that the effects of de-extinction would be unpredictable. Yet Colossal has continued to draw support from investors, including celebrities, and on Jan 31 announced another US$150mil (RM639.87mil) for a total of US$225mil (RM959.80mil) since 2021. A person familiar with the company said with the latest round the startup is valued at about US$1.5bil (RM6.39bil).