AgBiome raises $34.5 million to develop organic-farming fungicide

Agricultural biotechnology company AgBiome has raised $34.5 million from investors that it plans to plow into research and development and the anticipated launch of its first product. The new funding is one of the largest venture capital hauls by a Triangle company this year.

 

The company anticipates submitting an application for its first product to the Environmental Protection Agency in the next few weeks and hopes to begin selling it next year. That product, known internally as Howler, is a natural, or biological, fungicide that can be used by organic farmers. Most biological pesticides on the market today “just don’t work that well,” Tomso said. “Howler works as well as the flagship chemical solutions that are out there,” he said. “This stuff really, really works.”

 

The Research Triangle Park company, which has only existed since the end of 2012 and which previously raised $17.5 million from investors, intends to announce the new funding Thursday. AgBiome has 36 full-time and 14 part-time employees, and expects to add “a half-dozen or more” R&D employees this year and more than a dozen next year, said Dan Tomso, chief scientific officer.The company also anticipates assembling a sales team, but wouldn’t begin to do that until next year in conjunction with the anticipated regulatory approval of its first product, said Andrew Graham chief financial officer. AgBiome isn’t disclosing its hiring plans for its sales team. AgBiome plans to move into a new 30,000-square foot facility, which includes a 5,000-square-foot greenhouse, early next year. That space can accommodate up to 70 employees.

 

AgBiome’s research is focused on identifying novel microbes in plants such as corn and soybeans that can lead to more productive crops. The investors in AgBiome’s latest round of funding include Syngenta Ventures, the venture capital arm of agbio giant Syngenta, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.