Acquisition of The Lens Project: Call for Expressions of Interest

Cambia seeks expressions of interest from qualified and aligned organisations or individuals for the acquisition of The Lens.

CANBERRA, ACT, AUSTRALIA, July 31, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Cambia, a non-profit social enterprise based in Australia, is seeking to transfer ownership of The Lens project through a call for expressions of interest from mission-aligned institutions or individuals with the resources, culture, ambition and global reach to acquire, host and scale The Lens.

The Lens is the world’s largest and longest continually operating, open innovation knowledge platform with discovery and analytics tools to navigate over 165 million patents and 280 million scholarly works, and over 500 million patent-derived biological sequences. Established in 2001, The Lens serves the public and innovation professionals around the world through the web platform at Lens.org and associated API and web services.

The Lens supports the mission of Cambia, “Solving the problem of problem solving” with linked open data that enables access to actionable knowledge to improve science- and technology-enabled problem solving, ‘Informed by Evidence and Inspired by Imagination’. Today, The Lens provides discovery, analysis, reporting and management tools to anyone, anywhere using Lens.org as an anonymous user, and through tiered licensing, to commercial users, institutional and government users, and academic users on terms that are crafted to ensure affordability whilst contributing to The Lens’ sustainability and impact.

Founded and funded by a who’s-who of global philanthropy, the Lens is transitioning to a fully self-financed, earned-revenue operation. The Lens has a global user base coming from virtually all nations, and licensees include Universities, research institutes, government agencies, foundations, funding bodies and investors, science and technology intensive corporations, law firms, startups, management consulting, and AI intensive companies. With revenue increasing about 15% year on year, The Lens is well positioned to achieve break-even in 2026.

In March 2024, the Cambia Board conducted a strategic review, which recommended divesting the business unit concomitant with Cambia pivoting towards its roots in science, especially the hologenome theory developed by Cambia 30 years ago, and aspects of biological and social innovation. To achieve this, Cambia, led by its founder Richard Jefferson, is seeking a new steward of the project and a new generation of visionary, experienced and passionate leadership with skills to scale The Lens.

In June 2025, the Cambia Board approved a motion for transferring ownership of The Lens project through a call for expressions of interest from mission-aligned institutions or individuals with the resources, ambition and global scale to acquire and host The Lens project.

If your institution seems like a good fit, you can read more about The Lens and express your interest here https://about.lens.org/expressions-of-interest/.

Annie Connell
Cambia
annie.connell@lens.org