Brief: Vive Crop Protection closes $26m Series C to accelerate precision chemistry

• Vive Crop Protection, a Canadian developer of crop protection products, has closed a $26 million Series C investment round.
• The round was led by Canadian agtech venture capital firm Emmertech, with participation from the Cibus funds, and existing investors Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Export Development Canada (EDC) and Urbana Corporation.
• Vive has also secured debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) to provide both working and growth capital in support of their continued expansion.
• The funding will be used to accelerate Vive’s commercial deployment of its product portfolio into new North American markets while advancing its research and development pipeline.
• Vive plans to hold a second close of the round later this year to accommodate some other investor groups — groups it describes as “top tier” — that are still completing diligence; they are all strategically focused on next-generation agriculture technology.

Why it matters

Vive uses its patented ‘Allosperse’ technology to create crop protection products using a nanoscale, polymer-based delivery system that’s more targeted than typical delivery mechanisms. Applicable for both synthetic and biological active ingredients, Allosperse increases crop yields for farmers and reduces the environmental impact of applying crop protection, according to the company.

Vive now has seven products in the market that have been used on over 2 million farmland acres.

“Since 2018, our products are estimated to have saved farmers 34 million gallons of water, 189,000 gallons of fuel, and 15,000 hours of farm labor,” said Darren Anderson, CEO of Vive Crop Protection in a statement.

In 2021, Vive launched AZterknot fungicide in the US market, which the company claims has already been used in over 50,000 acres in 2022. This, Anderson says, demonstrates Vive’s ability to deliver biologicals with proven chemistry.

“As the demand for biologicals increases, Allosperse will be an important technology for bringing more bio-based offerings to market.”

The company also claims to have experienced rapid growth in the last 18 months as seen in new product registrations, increases in customer base, employment roster, and revenue – which Vive says has more than doubled from sales of its seven EPA-registered products.