Australia: Bayer announce partnership with startup investor to drive innovation

The Crop Science division of Bayer in Australia has announced it will partner with the SproutX Accelerator, in a move signalling increased interest in the startup community to deliver innovation for large agribusinesses.

SproutX recruits and invests in up to 10 food and agricultural technology startups annually who are solving the biggest challenges across the agrifood system. Through this partnership, Bayer will have early access and deep engagement with these startups to identify promising technologies that can be applied to their business and their customers.

Bayer is also seeking to invest in sustainability, and will prioritise innovations that address biodiversity loss and climate change.

“By partnering with SproutX, we can better tackle the problems that exist around food, feed, fibre and renewable raw materials,” said Chris Staff, head of strategy with Bayer.

“Engaging with startups for the exchange of ideas and solutions that aren’t blocked by industry norms can lead to powerful breakthroughs that will benefit our industry.”

Collaborating with an industry powerhouse like Bayer to enable proof of concept trials and in-kind resources and expertise is invaluable for technology development in early stage startups.

SproutX Program Director, Chris Romano, was confident that startups operating in the food production industry will fare better than other industries throughout the pandemic.

“Food production has proven to be a very stable sector, despite the challenges we have all faced during the COVID19 outbreak.”

“The support from Bayer is another example of how the food and agtech startup ecosystem continues to grow and strengthen. SproutX is proud to work with Bayer to create a positive impact in the lives of producers and consumers.”

SproutX recruits food and agricultural technology companies from around Australia for seed investment and commercialisation training. To date, they have invested in over 33 early stage startups.