SYNBIOAXLR8R the world’s first ever Life Sciences commercial accelerator program, which was founded in Cork in 2014 by SOSV and which became IndieBio EU, has today announced that it will change its name to RebelBio (aka Rebellious Biotechnology).“Rapid commercial success has been the driver of technological progress for decades and now life sciences is poised to make a new leap.”As with all SOSV (The Accelerator VC) programs, RebelBio, which has moved beyond the niche field of synthetic biology and has broadened into the open ended space of Life Sciences and technology, is open to applicants from all over the world.RebelBio welcomes applications from citizen scientists, biohackers and bio-entrepreneurs of any skill level, be it an undergraduate student to an experienced postdoctoral researcher, to take part and democratise biotechnology so we can impact society for the better, faster. Priority is given to independent startups and a Phd, although respected, is not a prerequisite to become part of this fast paced program.Applications are currently open with deadlines being extended to March 1st.

The programme is three months long with a an additional one month pre-program in business skills at the front end. The business pre-accelerator is designed to prime young science based startups for the realities of the business environment. The summer accelerator begins in April and will continue until July, where companies will showcase their emerging businesses at Demo Day.Steven O’Connell, the Associate Director and Programme Manager for RebelBio, had this to say: “Ireland is becoming an emerging hotspot for lean cost competitive synthetic biology and life sciences startups, and RebelBio is at the forefront, a beacon attracting and supporting entrepreneurship in global biological technology and technologically enabled biology.”Ireland is also of unique strategic interest to young emerging startups due to its unique position as one of the only English speaking economies with strong ties with the United States, the UK and the rest of Europe. Ireland is also a strong place to do business due to the corporate tax rate of 12.5%—meaning active subsidiaries are tax-free for two years with 12.5% being applied thereafter.Furthermore for research focussed companies can avail of even lower rates around 6.5%. The prospect of being able to build companies in a low cost, knowledge-based economy strengthens Ireland’s position as a leader in startups.With support and partnership from University College Cork, SOSV, and sister accelerator IndieBio in San Francisco, the RebelBio startups are uniquely placed to create a massive global impact in both economic and societal terms with jobs and exports being key beneficiaries in the wider economy. The world is just seeing the beginning of the massively impactful technologies that are being powered by technically enabled biology.RebelBio since 2014 has invested in companies such as Perfect Day Foods, creating the first synthetic biology milk product due to hit the shelves in 2017. The 2016 programme graduated 13 biotech companies including Helixworks, creating low cost DNA storage, MicrosynBiotiX, creating algae based fish vaccines, and a whole host of other exciting companies.Bill Liao, the visionary behind SynBioAxlr8r, co-founder of IndieBio, and General Partner at SOSV, had this to say:“It is time to cast off the shackles that are holding back many tangible benefits of technologically enabled through biology from our daily lives.”The company also announced that it will be aiming to scale the accelerator programme to twice per year from 2018 onward with support from University College Cork to recruit 15 companies per programme in a four month format.Boilerplates:Biology is the driving force fundamentally shaping outcomes to improve the human condition.RebelBio is the Global Accelerator for Biotechnology & Synthetic Biology, based in Cork, Ireland. We work with IndieBio SF & leading founders to build the best early stage, investor ready biotechnology startups. We create new functional foods,develop first in class therapeutics and use bioremediation to improve the environment and make the impossible inevitableSOSV — The Accelerator VC — is a venture fund with US$250M AUM operating global accelerator programs: HAX for hardware in Shenzhen and San Francisco, RebelBio for biotech in Cork, Ireland, IndieBio for biotech in San Francisco, Chinaccelerator for Internet in Shanghai, FOOD-X for the business of food in NYC, MOX for mobile software in Taipei, and URBAN-X for smart cities in NYC. SOSV invests in over 150 companies per year and over its two-decade history has a net IRR of over 30%, putting it in the top 7% of VC funds in the world.