Agricultural technology company BioConsortia Inc. is conducting hundreds of field trials this year with third-party partners in North America, Asia, Latin America and Europe, and it raised an undisclosed amount of money to do it.
Davis-based BioConsortia is pioneering soil and plant microbe technology as biostimulants and biopesticides to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The testing this year "represents our broadest BioConsortia-directed field testing program yet, as our robust pipeline now contains a wide variety of products in late-stage development," said BioConsortia CEO Marcus Meadows-Smith, in a news release. "These field trials will demonstrate the breadth and diversity of our pipeline, with solutions for yield-robbing nematodes, the negative effects of nitrogen use and food waste."
Since 2014, BioConsortia has raised more than $40 million from venture capital firms Otter Capital LLC, based in Woodside, and Khosla Ventures, based in Menlo Park.
The new funding round was led by Otter Capital, said Jon Amdursky, spokesman for BioConsortia.
The company will use the new funds for international growth and expansion of its relationships with commercial partners. It will also advance its pipeline of products to support sustainable agriculture.
The company has 50 employees, most of them in Davis. Some 16 of its employees are Ph.D.s, Amdursky said.
BioConsortia is a microbial discovery company. Its scientists develop agricultural technologies, and then the company works with other companies and partners to manufacture, market and distribute the product. For three years, BioConsortia has been working with agricultural chemical giant The Mosaic Co. (NYSE: MOS) in field testing and development.
"These fields tests will emphasize our focus on unleashing the power of microbes to meet the world’s food needs while reducing agriculture’s ecological impact,” Meadows-Smith said.
This year's expanded field tests expand on the company's efforts to work with potential collaborators, customers and existing partners like Mosaic.
BioConsortia is working on products including nitrogen-fixation microbes to replace synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, which are expensive and become a problem in waterways. It's also developing biostimulants to increase crop yields; bionematicides and biofungicides to protect crops from pests and diseases. It also is working on biologically derived products for post-harvest pathogen control once food makes it to distribution and eventually to retail markets.
A longtime ag industry veteran, Meadows-Smith was honored locally this year as a Most Admired CEO by the Sacramento Business Journal.
