A trio of former employees at Creve Coeur food technology firm Benson Hill has launched a new St. Louis-based agriculture-focused artificial intelligence startup that on Tuesday announced its first publicly disclosed deal with a customer.
The new startup, McClintock LLC, launched in May 2022 and focuses on providing artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help agriculture firms with plant breeding. It was founded by CEO Hongjie Guo, who formerly worked as a scientist at Benson Hill (NYSE: BHIL). Its team also includes Chief Scientific Officer Tom Brutnell, who co-founded Benson Hill, and Chief Technology Officer Avi Kaler, who also previously worked for Benson Hill.
McClintock said Tuesday it has entered into a “strategic collaboration” with San Francisco-based biotechnology company Amfora that involves its technology being used to aid in producing ultra-high protein soybean varieties. Financial terms of the partnership between McClintock and Amfora were not disclosed.
Amfora is focused on having its technology be used to help agriculture firms bolster their breeding operations through the use of data analytics and predictive modeling. It said its technology was co-developed with TF Seeds, an artificial intelligence plant breeding company based in China. Brutnell said McClintock has exclusive license to the technology platform in the U.S., with “potential to expand to other geographies.” It worked with a team of software developers employed by TF Seeds to build the technology.
Since its launch, McClintock has been focused on developing its technology and in March began to pursue partnerships with customers, Brutnell said.
“We’re essentially now open for business,” he said. “Our ideal client is someone who has an existing breeding program, but they are still doing it in a traditional way. They are still doing selections by eye or a small set of markers. What we can now bring is really the most advanced technology to accelerate their breeding platform.”
McClintock’s partnership with Amfora is the first customer relationship it has publicly disclosed. It comes as the startup plans to more publicly engage with the agriculture market after having stealthily built out its operations, Bruntell said.
“As we built the infrastructure, we didn’t want to oversell it or talk too much about it until we had something, because with more of a service model, you really need to hit the ground running. People don’t want to wait for you to build something,” he said. “Now we’ve built a very advanced system and we just want to turn it loose.”
A news release said the collaboration with Amfora will include using McClintock’s technology to "help identify key genetic markers and traits associated with high-yield and ultra-high protein content.”
“By leveraging McClintock’s AI platform to advance our soybean breeding program, we will accelerate our efforts to develop soy as a scalable, low-cost, high-density protein source for plant-based replacements of animal protein,” said Michael Lassner, chief scientific officer for Amfora, in the news release.
As it pursues additional partnerships, Brutnell said McClintock’s technology has wide market opportunity since it isn't constrained to specific crops or geography.
“We can look for opportunities globally and we’re now reaching out through our consulting network to a number of companies to see if they're interested and see where we could fit,” he said.
McClintock currently employs a business development consultant in France, as well as two in the U.S.
Guo and Brutnell said McClintock has been backed by angel funding, but declined to disclose its investors and the amount it has raised. It is actively fundraising for capital, Brutnell said.
