Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks announced the partnership in September 2017. The partners jointly invested $100 million in the venture, making the deal the second largest deal from an Ag Biotechnology startup in 2017, according to the AgFunder data.
Micropep Technologies, a French ag biotechnology company has raised a €4 million ($4.94 million) Series A round of funding. Micropep is developing crop enhancement products using micro-RNA or miRNA.
Boost Biomes uses DNA-sequencing to study microbiomes and identify interactions that have desired outcomes — in this case, combatting common crop threats.
Syngenta Ventures has a new managing director in Colin Steen, a Syngenta-veteran with venture experience from the early, early days of venture-backed agtech.
Inocucor manufactures biological stimulants for agriculture using a patented fermentation process to combine multi-strains of bacteria and yeasts into soil and plant optimizers. It has two products on the market today that aim to enhance the growth of crops.
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The new funding will go toward building out the company’s “Bioworks3” production facility and branching out into more industries beyond the company’s mainstays of agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
Indigo’s business model, which it is deploying funds to build out across the US, Argentina, and Australia, is as much a part of its offering as its business model, according to agtech insiders.
Ag biotech is a central focus of agrifood tech investing; here Brett Morris from TechAccel says out the firm’s market map of the category.
The round takes the startup’s total funding to over $300 million after it raised $156 million last year in Series C and D funding.
Bayer CropScience and Ginkgo Bioworks, a startup genetically engineering microbes for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries, have partnered with hedge fund Viking Global Investors to invest $100 million in a new, as yet unnamed agtech startup.
Biological pesticide firm Greenlight Biosciences has raised an $18 million Series D round led by led by farmland and agtech fund investor Fall Line Capital.
Distribution of the product will focus on the US, Canada, and Argentina, where NewLeaf has been successfully piloting the product for three years.
More collaboration between biological and chemical crop protection makers can better serve growers, workers, consumers, and the environment.
3Bar creates yield-boosting biologicals delivered in a unique container that allows the user to activate the microbes just before application, increasing the effectiveness of the product.
Chemical pesticides are under increasing scrutiny from consumers and regulators; biopesticides can provide an alternative or supplement to these traditional chemical pesticides, write Spencer Maughan and Kieran Furlong.
The startup spun out of Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), the life sciences research institute founded by the Flemish Government in 1995, and raised all the funding from local Belgian investors.
Agri-food technology companies raised $42.5m in two weeks from farm-to-fork.
Joško Bobanović, partner at VC Sofinnova Partners, discusses the nuances of investing in industrial biotech, the impact of Brexit, and the challenges some biotech companies face in finding financing.
TPG Alternative and Renewable Technologies, an arm of the $70 billion global private investment house TPG, has invested in Inocucor Technologies, the Canadian agricultural products company.
