September 10, 2018

St. Louis-based bioagtech company Benson Hill Biosystems announced a close of $60 million on a Series C led by GV. Included in the round were new investors Activant Capital and Tao Capital Partners, along with existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments, Fall Line Capital, iSelect Fund, Lewis & Clark Ventures, Mercury Fund, Prelude Ventures, and S2G Ventures.

Founded in 2012 in response to the global need to produce more food from existing arable acreage with limited inputs, Benson Hill employs cloud biology – the joining of cloud computing, big data analytics, and plant biology – to help advance the genetics of crops at a much faster pace and at a lower cost than traditional methods.

“Benson Hill delivers the full suite of solutions a company needs to create differentiated products and capture this growing market, whether they are a seed company, food manufacturer or food retailer,” said Sanjeev Krishnan, managing director with S2G Ventures.

Through its revolutionary computational platform CropOS™ and suite of breeding and genome editing tools, Benson Hill empowers organizations of all sizes along the agri-food value chain through advanced seed innovation and leveraging the natural genetic diversity of plants to improve sustainability, nutrition, and flavor profiles at an accelerated pace.

Plant breeders and researchers can use the data analytics and biological knowledge-base on the CropOS platform to bypass years of experimentation in the search for specific desired traits. The platform’s ability to use machine learning also means that as the number of users, experiments, and data increase, so too will the sophistication of the research capabilities. It also democratizes the process – doing the computational work that allows agricultural scientists to more easily down the data.

“With its data-driven approach to crop improvement, Benson Hill has significant potential to impact the next wave of productivity gains across food and agriculture,” said Andy Wheeler, general partner at GV. “The broad applicability of Benson Hill’s technology platform – combined with the executive team’s expertise in photosynthesis and genomic selection -creates new opportunities for farmers and the food production industry at-large.”

This funding follows little more than a year after Benson Hill closed on a $25 million Series B in March 2017, which was co-led by Lewis & Clark Ventures and Prelude Ventures, and including Fall Line Capital, S2G Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, Cultivation Capital, iSelect Fund, Mercury Fund, Middleland Capital, Missouri Technology Corporation, Prolog Ventures, and TechAccel.

The new capital from this latest round is being dedicated by Benson Hill to further advance its CropOS platform, and to expand both product development and the ability to deliver a portfolio of improved crops.
“Developing foods that are nourishing to our bodies, responsible to our planet and that taste great is not a trade-off, it’s an opportunity,” said Matthew Crisp, CEO and co-founder of Benson Hill Biosystems. “By combining biology with machine intelligence, our platform provides a novel approach to crop improvement. With this round, we have expanded our base of investors who recognize the power of plants and innovation to benefit both farmers and consumers.”

-Lynda Kiernan