June 3, 2016

Benson Hill is bringing cloud biology to agriculture. In May, the Durham, North Carolina and St. Louis, Missouri-based start-up announced the launch of CropOS, a platform to help companies access more efficient tools to increase the rate of innovation in the plant biology space.

CropOS, a “cognitive engine” designed to embolden plant genomics research with the power of cloud biology – which can be defined as the intersection between cloud computing, big data analytics and biology. Plant breeders and researchers can use the data analytics and biologic knowledge on the CropOS platform to bypass years of experimentation to find specific biologic solutions. The platform’s reliance on machine learning means that as the number of users, experiments, and data increase, so too will the sophistication of the research capabilities.

Since it’s 2012 founding, when it in-licensed a large amount of computational assets from the Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center in St. Louis, Benson Hill has built up resources and pointed them toward improving primary metabolism in plants. Last year, the company was approached about the platform they had developed but not for use in trait development or metabolism as it was designed, but for breeding operations. Due diligence on opening up the platform for other uses, such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, and modification of plant architecture through plant breeding, showed that market potential was favorable. After closing a Series A round last year, Benson Hill started investing in computational horsepower and in the development of a user interface in order to open the platform up to other areas of product development.

“Benson Hill totally changes the game and allows both small and large companies to improve plant biology faster,” said Dan Watkins, partner at Mercury Fund, which invested in Benson Hill’s $8M Series A round. “Previously, only the largest companies or research institutions had the resources and expertise to do this, and even then, it could take years to get a research program to market. CropOS represents a uniquely powerful platform at the intersection of big data, machine learning and plant biology. Perhaps most impressive is that CropOS has already demonstrated, in ongoing field trials, that it can drive very significant increases in yield for major food crops.”

Ultimately, enabling more players in the plant biology space through this platform should increase the biological innovation brought to the sector, something Matthew Crisp, CEO of Benson Hill, says is, “Frankly, more important than ever to do given the urgency in agriculture today.”

—

Sarah Day Levesque