Bayer joins Greentown Labs’ corporate partner network

Greentown Labs, the largest climatetech startup incubator in North America, announced Bayer as the newest member of its growing corporate partner network. Bayer, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, is a multinational life science company with core competencies in the areas of health care and agriculture.

Sustainable development and inclusive growth are core elements of Bayer’s corporate strategy and vision: “health for all, hunger for none.” Bayer’s commitment to inclusive growth means it is providing more people in all regions of the world with access to health care and food security, and developing solutions to environmental protection with a focus on decarbonization, climate adaptation, and biodiversity preservation.

Bayer has outlined target sustainability goals that are aligned with the Paris Agreement and has set out to decarbonize and achieve a net zero target for its supply chain by 2050. More specifically, the company is also reducing the global greenhouse gas footprint of crop production and the environmental impact of plant protection products by 30 percent by 2030.

“We’re thrilled to join Greentown Labs as a Gigawatt Partner and are eager to engage with its entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Phil Taylor, Open Innovation Lead for Bayer’s Crop Science Division. “Through our partnership, Bayer will gain access to Greentown’s global network of early-stage startups that are creating innovations to sustainably advance agriculture. We’re particularly excited to connect with entrepreneurs working in crop science and plant-based proteins.”

Research shows the agricultural technology (agtech) market is estimated to grow from $13.8 billion in 2020 to $22 billion in 2025, with hardware expected to drive this growth. In order to ensure this growth is done in a sustainable manner, climatetech innovation in the agtech space must be scaled and integrated into the world’s largest organizations—like Bayer—that are leading this growth.

“Greentown Labs is proud to have Bayer joining our network of corporate partners and can’t wait to connect its team of experts with our entrepreneurs working in the agtech space,” said Dr. Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs. “We know the agtech industry has enormous potential to mitigate and combat climate change, and we believe fostering mutually beneficial partnerships between our entrepreneurs and corporate partners is a critical piece to accelerating climate action.”

Greentown Labs has a decade-long track record of supporting climatetech entrepreneurs as they scale technologies, and sees meaningful opportunities to advance agtech innovation around food and soil, digital tools and monitoring, and farmer resilience and equity. The incubator is currently home to more than a dozen agtech-focused startups. Learn more about them here.

About Greentown Labs

As the largest climatetech startup incubator in North America, Greentown Labs brings together startups, corporates, investors, policymakers, and many others with a focus on scaling climate solutions. Driven by the mission of providing startups the resources, knowledge, connections, and equipment they need to thrive, Greentown Labs offers lab space, shared office space, a machine shop, an electronics lab, software and business resources, and a large network of corporate customers, investors, and more. With its headquarters in Somerville, Mass. and a recently opened incubator in Houston, Texas, Greentown Labs is home to more than 140 startups and has supported more than 340 startups since the incubator’s founding in 2011. These startups have collectively created more than 6,500 direct jobs and have raised more than $1.2 billion in funding.