Trace Genomics has built the first scalable soil microbiome test to help farmers predict soil disease, soil health, and crop quality, using high-throughput DNA sequencing and machine learning.
“GMOs are an old, bludgeon tool that feels dated,” said Sam Kass, food entrepreneur, former White House chef and senior policy advisor for nutrition, founder of Trove, and venture partner in Acre Venture Partners.
"Trying to be the "new Monsanto" or the "Amazon of Ag" does not work; copying what others have already done is not generally a recipe for disruption," argues Federico Trucco, CEO of Argentine agtech business Bioceres.
The "precise and predictable outcomes" of Cibus' gene editing technology are "identical to those that could occur in nature, given enough time," argues the company.
Management teams in plant genetics companies have likely been asked by at least one well-intending board member: “Are we using CRISPR? I sat next to this guy on the plane and he said that CRISPR will change everything," writes Vonnie Estes.
Roslin Technologies has spun out of the University of Edinburgh and The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, to raise £10 million ($12.4m) in funding to commercialize its first products.
We caught up with Nierenberg to get a high-level view of the challenges facing the industry today, how technology can play a role, and being a female entrepreneur.
Epigenetics is the study of how an animal or plant cell reads and acts on the information in its genes based on the presence (or not) of certain epigenetic markers in the chromatin.
TL Biolabs, a startup offering $15 genomic tests for beef and dairy cattle, and the software needed to analyze the results, has raised $4 million in seed funding.
Scarce natural resources have promoted the development of a thriving, local ecosystem for agricultural technologies, and BIRD Foundation is helping take these technologies to the US, writes Maya Vardi-Shoshani.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a three-year, $6.1 million grant to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to expand and accelerate the development and deployment of improved varieties of sorghum for smallholder farmers.
The grant and partnership with NCGA aims to assist smaller corn breeding programs in developing new hybrid seed varieties to broaden the number of corn seed options on the market.
The ag bioinformatics startup for the wine industry will be hiring new staff at its San Francisco and Spain locations to build out its microbial database and global service.
Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto was the week's biggest piece of news, but we also have items from agtech startups, such as Farmigo, accelerators such as Thrive, and legislators.
For the eighth round of this annual event, 20 companies will present across multiple technology categories while panel discussions will focus on food waste, gene-editing technology and a keynote from farmers.
John Deere's acquisition of Precision Planting from Monsanto has been called into question by US Anti-trust officials, while Caribou Biosciences expands and Virtrus Nutrition acquires Farmeron.
Israeli Computer Vision Startup Prospera Closes $7m Series A
Prospera, an Israeli startup using computer vision, data science, and machine learning to monitor and analyze crops, has raised $7 million in Series A funding in a round led by local VC Bessemer Venture Partners.
California ag biotech company Ceres is facing a shareholder lawsuit challenging the company’s recent sale to major dairy cooperative Land O’Lakes for $17.6 million.
Monsanto and TargetGene Biotechnologies, a genome-editing company using RNA-guided gene-editing techniques, have entered into a license agreement granting Monsanto an exclusive license to TargetGene’s proprietary "T∙GEE" (Genome Editing Engine) platform.
