Investors see the massive potential of pheromones
The game-changing potential of using pheromone-based mating disruption in large-scale row crops is there for everyone to see. This is what our investors tell us:
BioPhero’s innovation is a biotechnology platform for microbial production of pheromones at industrial scale that makes them cost competitive with insecticides in row crops. BioPhero’s approach is unique because it is the only company in the pheromone industry to fully utilise biological production with IP protection of key parts of the technology.
BioPhero has closed two funding rounds:
- Seed round of €3m in September 2018 with a consortium consisting of Novo Holdings, Syngenta Group Ventures and Syddansk Innovation.
- A-round of $17m in February 2021, led by DCVC Bio, with participation from FMC Ventures, Novo Holdings and Syngenta Group Ventures.
DCVC Bio is a venture capital fund investing in early-stage computational biology startups. Advances in genetic sequencing, artificial intelligence and automation are converging to transform existing life sciences technologies and speed the development of new ones. DCVC Bio supports companies affecting deep technological change in synthetic biology, medicine, and agriculture. We are especially interested in teams shaping the biochemical building blocks the life sciences industry runs on.
Syngenta Group Ventures invests globally in innovative businesses whose purpose helps “bringing plant potential to life”. As the venture capital arm of the Syngenta Group, one of the world’s leading agribusiness companies, Syngenta Group Ventures is seeking to identify early-stage companies with a strong technology base or new business model, or both, where the team of investment professionals, together with the support of the 25,000 colleagues across the world, can help build valuable businesses benefitting both Syngenta and the investee company stakeholders.
Novo Holdings’ early-stage investment arm, Novo Seeds, the leading early-stage life science investor in Scandinavia. Novo Holdings is a Danish private limited liability company wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. It is the holding company of the Novo Group, comprising Novo Nordisk A/S, Novozymes A/S and NNIT A/S, and is responsible for managing the Foundation’s assets. It is the vision of Novo Holdings to be recognised as a world-leading life science investor with a focus on creating long-term value.
FMC Ventures, the venture arm of FMC Corporation, invests in start-ups and early-stage companies that develop and apply emerging technologies in the agricultural industry with a unique strategic advantage for FMC. Focus is on addressing pressing challenges through advances in artificial intelligence, genomics, robotics, precision agriculture, biopesticides, synthetic biology and other innovations. FMC Corporation has a robust product portfolio in crop protection, plant health, and professional pest and turf management, including leading insect control products based on Rynaxypyr® and Cyazypyr®.