Ben Lamm

Co-Founder & CEO Colossal Biosciences

Last Reviewed: September 23, 2026

Executive Summary

Ben Lamm is co-founder and chief executive of Colossal Biosciences, the Dallas company that set out in 2021, with Harvard and MIT geneticist George Church, to bring back the woolly mammoth. It now calls itself the world’s first de-extinction company, working on six species including the dodo, the thylacine and the moa. Lamm is not a scientist. He is a serial technology founder, and what he brought to de-extinction was the ability to finance it like a technology company. Colossal raised a $200 million Series C at a $10.2 billion valuation in January 2025, bringing its total to $435 million. It has spun out separately funded businesses from its research tools and acquired the animal-cloning company Viagen. In July 2026 it was reported to be in talks to raise at a valuation of $20 billion to $30 billion.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Colossal Biosciences with George Church in 2021 and has led it as CEO since.
• Announced a $200 million Series C in January 2025, led by TWG Global at a $10.2 billion valuation, bringing Colossal’s total funding to $435 million.
• In April 2025 announced the birth of three gene-edited wolf pups, Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, which Colossal presents as de-extinct dire wolves.
• Acquired Viagen, a pet and equine cloning business, in November 2025 to add reproductive, cryopreservation and cell-banking capability.
• Before Colossal, founded Chaotic Moon (acquired by Accenture), Conversable (acquired by LivePerson) and Hypergiant, and co-founded the gaming company Team Chaos (acquired by Zynga).
• Fellow and member of the Board of Trustees of the Explorers Club.

Professional Journey

Lamm spent roughly two decades building technology companies before turning to genetics, and Colossal’s own biography treats that record as his qualification. He co-founded Team Chaos, a consumer gaming company later acquired by Zynga. He then founded Chaotic Moon, a creative technology studio acquired by Accenture, and Conversable, a conversational-AI platform for brands acquired by LivePerson. His last company before Colossal was Hypergiant, an enterprise AI software company working in critical infrastructure, space and defence, which was also later acquired. Tony Robbins, who invested in and coached him at Hypergiant, became an early Colossal investor.

Colossal began in 2021 as a partnership between Lamm and George Church, whose lab at Harvard Medical School and work at the Wyss Institute underpin the company’s genome-engineering approach. The initial goal was the woolly mammoth. The company has since added the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, the moa, the dire wolf and the bluebuck, an antelope hunted to extinction. Its model rests on the idea that governments already pay for conservation. In Lamm’s words, reintroduced animals create “the potential for annuities in carbon credits, nature credits and tourism taxes.”

The financing grew fast. In January 2025 Colossal announced a $200 million Series C led by TWG Global at a $10.2 billion valuation. Lamm said the money would expand the team, fund new technology and widen the list of species. Three months later came the announcement that made the company famous: three gene-edited pups, Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, carrying about 20 targeted edits that Colossal presents as recreating the dire wolf. In November 2025 Colossal acquired Viagen, the pet and equine cloning company, which now runs as a subsidiary.

Lamm has also built a portfolio of businesses from Colossal’s research tools. They include Form Bio, a computational biology platform; Breaking, which uses engineered biology to break down plastics; and Astromech, an AI company that forecasts biological and evolutionary change, which he spun out in 2026. By TechCrunch’s July 2026 report, Colossal had begun generating revenue and was in talks to raise new capital at a valuation of $20 billion to $30 billion.

Outside the company he is a fellow and trustee of the Explorers Club, sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Planetary Society and on the advisory board of the Arch Mission. He lives in Dallas.

Education

No school or degree is named in any source read; none is recorded.