Creve Coeur agriculture firm NewLeaf Symbiotics expects $45 million in fresh funding to position it for a “huge" milestone: profitable operations.
NewLeaf, which has developed products to boost crop growth, in December said it closed on a $45 million Series D funding round. It plans to use the financing to target product expansion and international growth.
“This funding is really what’s going to accelerate the science, but also the commercial capabilities we need to scale,” said NewLeaf President and CEO Brent Smith.
Based at BRDG Park at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center campus, NewLeaf develops and commercializes products that include beneficial plant microbes designed to improve crop nutrition and yield. It has developed technology called pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs (PPFM), which NewLeaf says form “a symbiotic relationship with the plant as it emerges and grows,” helping to improve the health of a crop. NewLeaf has raised $122 million in financing since its founding in 2013.
NewLeaf has largely operated as a research and development firm since its founding as it sought to bring products to market. It has added commercial operations, launching products for soy and corn crops. It says its products were used on 800,000 acres in crop year 2022, a figure that grew to 3.5 million acres in 2023. NewLeaf projects its products will be applied on an estimated 11 million acres in 2024.
“We will always be a science-led organization, but we’re also evolving into a commercially driven organization,” said Smith, who joined as NewLeaf in March 2023.
The launch of new products will be critical to NewLeaf’s expansion. Its pipeline includes a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-registered pesticide product to mitigate rootworm in corn crops, technologies for peanut and cotton crops, as well as products geared around rice yield, nitrogen efficiency and methane reduction.
Global expansion is also part of NewLeaf’s strategy. Smith said NewLeaf's products were used in the U.S. and Mexico when he joined the company in early 2023. It since expanded into several countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and China. Smith said NewLeaf believes South America is where it can expand most rapidly.
“Technologies like ours are readily adopted there,” Smith said.
While it declined to share specific figures, NewLeaf said its revenue doubled from 2022 to 2023. It expects to be profitable in 2024.
“That allows us to further expand,” Smith said.
Smith said profitability “really gives the ability to control our destiny” as NewLeaf seeks to commercialize new products and expand manufacturing operations to meet a growing product portfolio.
NewLeaf has 48 employees, with 75% of its staff based in St. Louis. It added eight roles in 2023 and expects to hire for another seven this year, with most of those positions based in St. Louis, Smith said. Swedish investment firm Gullspång Re:food led NewLeaf’s $45 million Series D funding round. Other investors in the deal included Otter Capital Partners LP, S2G Ventures and Leaps by Bayer.
