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Upstream Ag Professional - September 15th 2024
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Upstream Ag Professional - September 15th 2024

Essential news and analysis for agribusiness leaders.

Welcome to the 59th Edition of Upstream Ag Professional!

Index:

  1. Peptide Company Focused on Insecticides, SOLASTA Bio Raises $14m Series A

  2. Keurig for Biological Products: Indigo Ag Upends Standard Biological Seed Treatment Application

  3. Bayer, AgVend Collaboration Allows Retailers to Improve Digital Connectivity with Farmers

  4. Catalera Series A Funding to Catalyze a New Era of Biological Pest Control

  5. Regenerative Agriculture

    1. I'm a regenerative agriculture skeptic - and I finally figured out why

    2. Regenerative Agriculture Doesn’t Have to be Contentious

    3. Regenerative agriculture less popular ‘when it comes at the expense of consumers,’ says new report from Purdue

  6. Chinese ag drone maker DJI hits back as US lawmakers accuse it of ‘weaponizing’ aircraft ‘to gain leverage over nation’s food supply

    1. Sprayer drones: Losing altitude in early flight

  7. 5 Key Takeaways for Agribusiness Professionals from Stratus Ag Research Report: Boosting Ag Retailer Success Through Manufacturer Support

  8. ICYMI: 2nd Quarter 2024 Agribusiness Earnings Results: Themes, Highlights, Analysis and Financial Data

  9. Cumulative vs. Cyclical Knowledge

  10. Other Interesting Ag Articles (5 this week)

Thank you for being an Upstream Ag Professional member!


1. Peptide Company Focused on Insecticides, SOLASTA Bio Raises $14m Series A - Upstream Ag Professional

Key Takeaways
  • SOLASTA's $14 million Series A round, backed by companies like FMC Ventures and Corteva, highlights the interest in peptide-based solutions for crop protection. SOLASTA has now raised $19 million.

  • This investment marks the first by Corteva Catalyst, Corteva’s recently announced investment and partnership platform.

  • SOLASTA aims to have commercially available products by 2027.


SOLASTA Bio, a leading agri-biotech company specialising in the next generation of green insecticides, has completed an oversubscribed $14 million Series A funding round to accelerate the development of its unique peptide-based, bioinsecticides.

The investment round was led by Forbion via its BioEconomy fund strategy, with co-lead investment from agricultural strategics FMC Ventures and Corteva Catalyst.

According to Crunchbase, peptide company SOLASTA Bio has now raised over $19 million. The Company has been developing its technology since licensing IP from the University of Glasgow.

Before getting into SOLASTA, there is another notable aspect to this news:

It marks Corteva Catalysts first publicly disclosed investment.

Corteva announced their Catalyst initiative in March, calling it an “investment and partnership platform.”

Corteva stated that they will initially focus on identifying opportunities across four strategic verticals aligned with the company’s R&D priorities:

  • genome editing

  • biologicals and natural products

  • technology platforms

  • decision science

Corteva is one of the major input organizations that has committed to increasing R&D spend, along with establishing Catalyst as another avenue for finding innovation:

Notably, FMC Ventures is also involved in the SOLASTA round. FMC Ventures has also invested in peptide company Micropep, and biosolution company Agrospheres. Cavallo Ventures, Wilbur Ellis’s venture division, is involved as well, which has also invested in peptide company Vestaron along with Agrospheres.

What is a Peptide and What makes Solasta Bio Unique?

Peptides are natural molecules encoded in plant genomes. They are made of about 10 to 30 amino-acids, the natural building blocks of life. There are 20 different natural amino-acids, which give about 10 trillion different combinations possible to make 10 amino-acids long peptides.

Peptides have the potential to deliver the efficacy of synthetic chemistry with the environmental footprint of microbials and with less limitation than RNAs, offering better plant penetrability and supply chain/environmental stability.

SOLASTA Bio specializes in peptide insect control capabilities that are based on endogenous insect peptides, which govern insect physiology and behavior.

The company develops peptides based on insect “neuropeptides” to deliver novel bioinsecticide products. Insect neuropeptides are small molecules, responsible for most of the physiological activities of an insect such as signaling processes, pheromone synthesis and muscle activities. That means SOLASTA solutions act on specific targets in insect tissues, altering their behaviour and disrupting lifecycles— such as making them forget to lay eggs, or avoid feeding, rather than killing them outright.

For the full article overviewing the focus of SOLASTA, what makes them unique, their approach to the market, along with challenges in peptides and others companies in the space, check out the link above.


2. Keurig for Biological Products: Indigo Ag upends standard biological seed treatment application - Indigo Ag

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