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I think too many people don't understand that the $VGAC shareholders only get 11 % of 23andMe. At 19 USD that's a valuation of nearly 8 billion and completely o

I think too many people don't understand that the $VGAC shareholders only get 11 % of 23andMe. At 19 USD that's a valuation of nearly 8 billion and completely overvalued - I wrote a blog post about this: https://blog.m5e.de/post/on-the-23andme-and-vgac-merger/ https://blog.m5e.de/post/on-the-23andme-and-vgac-merger/

trott 6y ago
Genetic testing used to be very expensive: $3B to sequence the human genome. So Ancestry/23/etc. tried to guess certain properties based on very sparse features of your genome, which is hard. But today, whole genome sequencing cost is approaching $100. This cost reduction will upend this industry, in my opinion.
- zetazzed 6y ago
  The cheapest WGS I can find for consumers is $299 (30x WGS from Nebula). Do you know a cheaper alternative? I'd much rather get a whole genome that I can download rather than the handful of little snips from 23 and me... At $100 I would buy in a sec. Would be a nice motivator for bioinformatics hobby/learning projects too.
  - trott 6y ago
    I saw ads for $149/sample. Probably not available to consumers yet. But the general trend is precipitous decline (10000000x)
- Wronnay 6y ago
  That's not the point. The point is: at 19 USD per share you nearly buy at a valuation (8 billion) at which the institutional investors bought Ancestry ($4.7 billion) and 23andMe ($3.5 billion) Also: 23andMe had declining revenue in the past years and does only make around 200 million revenue. You buy a business at a valuation at 8 billion which makes only around 200 million revenue.
  - trott 6y ago
    It's a good point. I'm just saying that this coming tech revolution is another issue to consider.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    I'm assuming they're going to try to start monetizing the data they've collected, not that they expect people to keep paying for more and more tests. I wouldn't read too much into the revenue that the old model generated. (People complain that Facebook etc have become big and powerful by sucking up all your data, but at least Zuck didn't charge you for the data.)
breck 6y ago
Doh! Thank you for the tip. I'll be honest, I was a little confused by the ~$1B market cap, but I did buy VGAC thinking I was getting a slice of 23andMe at a ~3.5B market cap, because that's how the press release made it sound. In the future it would be nice if SPACs and the companies made that dead simple. I don't think this is something that needs to be regulated though. From the events this month I think we just need to allow the public to invest in whatever, abolish copyrights (which allow lies to flourish and buries the truth), and let the market figure it out.

trott 6y ago

Genetic testing used to be very expensive: $3B to sequence the human genome. So Ancestry/23/etc. tried to guess certain properties based on very sparse features of your genome, which is hard. But today, whole genome sequencing cost is approaching $100. This cost reduction will upend this industry, in my opinion.

zetazzed 6y ago
The cheapest WGS I can find for consumers is $299 (30x WGS from Nebula). Do you know a cheaper alternative? I'd much rather get a whole genome that I can download rather than the handful of little snips from 23 and me... At $100 I would buy in a sec. Would be a nice motivator for bioinformatics hobby/learning projects too.
- trott 6y ago
  I saw ads for $149/sample. Probably not available to consumers yet. But the general trend is precipitous decline (10000000x)
Wronnay 6y ago
That's not the point. The point is: at 19 USD per share you nearly buy at a valuation (8 billion) at which the institutional investors bought Ancestry ($4.7 billion) and 23andMe ($3.5 billion) Also: 23andMe had declining revenue in the past years and does only make around 200 million revenue. You buy a business at a valuation at 8 billion which makes only around 200 million revenue.
- trott 6y ago
  It's a good point. I'm just saying that this coming tech revolution is another issue to consider.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  I'm assuming they're going to try to start monetizing the data they've collected, not that they expect people to keep paying for more and more tests. I wouldn't read too much into the revenue that the old model generated. (People complain that Facebook etc have become big and powerful by sucking up all your data, but at least Zuck didn't charge you for the data.)

breck 6y ago

Doh! Thank you for the tip. I'll be honest, I was a little confused by the ~$1B market cap, but I did buy VGAC thinking I was getting a slice of 23andMe at a ~3.5B market cap, because that's how the press release made it sound. In the future it would be nice if SPACs and the companies made that dead simple. I don't think this is something that needs to be regulated though. From the events this month I think we just need to allow the public to invest in whatever, abolish copyrights (which allow lies to flourish and buries the truth), and let the market figure it out.