Davis-based ag-tech company BioConsortia Inc. has raised $15 million in venture capital led by existing investor Otter Capital.
The company will use the money to expand its research and development lab and workforce in Davis and to expand development of microbial products, as well as to expand international field trials.
“We have validated the consistency and impact of our nitrogen-fixing seed treatments through hundreds of field trials across a wide array of crops in recent years,” said CEO Marcus Meadows-Smith, in a news release. “This announced investment underlines our confidence that these technologies, with their extended shelf- and on-seed life, set a new standard for nitrogen-fixation products.”
BioConsortia is pioneering soil and plant microbe technology as biostimulants and biopesticides to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture.
The company has pioneered methods to generate biological treatments that are applied directly to seeds in a dormant spore state. That allows the biological controls to have a shelf life of up to two years, compared to just days for many other biological treatments, said Jon Amdursky, spokesman with the company.
The company said the new money will allow it to expand field trial programs in key ag regions worldwide and to grow its lab space to accommodate microbial gene-editing, formulation and fermentation research.
BioConsortia is a research and discovery company, and it proposed to work with partners to manufacture, sell and market its products, Amdursky said.
The company’s nitrogen-fixing products have been in field trials for two years. Those products applied to seeds are triggered when the seed sprouts in the field, and then spores awaken and colonize the plant with nitrogen-fixing microbes. Those microbes are able to take free nitrogen from the air, rather than farmers having to add synthetic nitrogen in the form of chemical fertilizers.
BioConsortia is also working on biofungicide, bionematicide and post-harvest decay control products. They could approach commercialization this year.
A year ago, BioConsortia raised $15 million to conduct hundreds of field trials using its biotechnology with third-party partners in fields in North America, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
The funding last year, and even this year, is notable because it came at a time when venture capital investments have become increasingly scarce, especially in life sciences, where the time between investment and return can be long.
"BioConsortia has a trusted and proven track record over the past 10 years,” Amdursky said. “Marcus is a credible innovator in the biological agriculture space.”
Since its founding in 2014, BioConsortia has raised $60 million, including initial funding rounds from Otter Capital and Khosla Ventures.
During the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco last month, Industry newsletter AgTech Navigator quoted Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, saying that ag-tech investing is a long-term play in a still very young field.
Khosla was among the first investors in BioConsortia.
