April 17, 2024

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Ginkgo Bioworks announced its acquisition of AgBiome’s platform assets including more than 115,000 sequenced and isolated strains, more than 500 million unique gene sequences, associated functional data and metadata, and AgBiome’s development pipeline. 

These newly held assets will be integrated into Ginkgo Ag Biologicals Services – a platform established in 2022 with the acquisition of a Bayer agricultural biologicals R&D facility, expanding Ginkgo’s proprietary, unified metagenomics database. Once accomplished, this will result in one of the deepest and most advanced ag biological discovery and development platforms in existence and a valuable resource for the development of AI models for biological R&D. 

“Chemical pesticides are dominant today, but the fastest growing category of crop inputs is ‘biologicals’ and more specifically ‘biopesticides’,” noted Pam Marrone, founder and CEO of Marrone Bio Innovations, in her article, Growing Innovation in Biologicals published in GAI News in May 2019. “These are becoming essential tools in the growers’ toolboxes by promoting plant health and controlling unwanted pests and diseases, which leads to better yields with reduced environmental impact – as well as improving grower profits.”

AgBiome was founded in 2012 with a mission to develop and deliver naturally derived crop protection products that meet consumer demands and drive more sustainable food production. Since its launch, the company has worked to generate an extensive collection of biological products and technologies from bioactive ingredients to gene editing tools, through its proprietary Genesis Discovery Platform that captures diverse, novel microbes for use in agricultural applications, screening them with industry-leading assays for insect, disease, and nematode control factors.

The company has developed a massive microbial strain library from over 8,000 geographically diverse environmental samples. These isolates have been fully sequenced resulting in a robust library with over 500 million novel gene sequences. And as part of its integrated approach to crop protection, AgBiome has partnered with global ag companies to further accelerate innovation, production commercialization, and distribution, through multiple commercial agreements.

Also included in the acquisition is a pipeline consisting of a dozen potential products with greenhouse or field validation – these validated assets create a strong foundation for future partnered programs, as well as a resource of metagenomic data for genomic mining and AI model training. 

“These assets represent a massive, ground-breaking investment into exploring and characterizing microbial diversity for human benefit, and we can’t think of a better home for them than the Ginkgo platform,” said Laura Potter, CSO, AgBiome.

In 2021, AgBiome successfully raised $116 million in Series D funding co-led by Blue Horizon and Novalis LifeSciences. This gained them the backing needed to advance at a time when there was a shrinking base of arable farmland but a higher level of willingness by farmers to adopt new systems that result in higher yields while being environmentally safe; and growing consumer demand for cleaner supply chains and less agrochemical usage that have increasingly brought the biologicals category onto the radar of investors.

“We are so excited to bring AgBiome’s incredible strain and metagenomic collection into Ginkgo. This is a world class asset that will significantly expand our capabilities and can directly benefit Ginkgo’s customers in the ag biologicals space,” said Michael Miille, Ginkgo Fellow. 

“In addition to the platform assets and capabilities, the product concepts pipeline that has been validated by AgBiome to date provides an exciting opportunity to give customers a head-start in their product development efforts.”

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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