June 30, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

U.S. agbiotech startup and global crop nutrition company Boost Biomes has raised $5 million through a Series A round of funding, and has announced the establishment of a joint development agreement with lead investor Yara International. 

As lead investor, Yara committed $3 million to the round, which also included existing investors Viking Global Investors and Y Combinator.

Launched with $2.5 million in Seed capital from Nimble Ventures and Viking Global, Boost Biomes was founded by biotech veterans Rob McBride, Jamie Bacher, and Adam Arkin to identify commercially viable microbial products, with an initial focus on improving yield in the field and reducing spoilage after harvest.

According to the academic paper “Functional Soil Microbiome: Belowground Solutions to an Aboveground Problem” by Venkatachalam Lakshmanan, Gopinath Selvaraj, and Harsh P. Bais from the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Delaware, the plant microbiome encompasses the “diverse functional gene pool, originating from viruses, prokaryotes, and eukaryotes, associated with various habitats of a plant host. Such plant habitats range from the whole organism (individual plants) to specific organs (e.g. roots, leaves, shoots, flowers, and seeds, including zones of interaction between roots and the surrounding soil).” This symbiotic relationship can protect plants from disease, drought and insect attacks and prevent plants from drying out during extended droughts.

“The key to leveraging microbes to impact food sustainability challenges is figuring out how to sift through enormous diversity and identify specific microbes, or groups of microbes, that will have an impact in real world conditions,” said Boost Biomes Cofounder Rob McBride in 2018. “Our goal is to demonstrate that our approach can sift diversity more efficiently, and arrive at solutions that are more effective than traditional approaches.”

Today, Boost is using this new funding to continue to develop its pioneering biofungal product, to further develop its product pipeline and technology platform, including products that may include novel antibiologicals, improve nutrient utilization, crop growth, and health, or products that extend the shelf life of fresh produce.

And together, through their new partnership, Yara and Boost will expand current efforts to co-develop a new product that improves the rate of crop nutrient uptake from the soil, allowing for increased yields at a lower cost due to the need for less inputs, while also reducing environmental impact. 

“We are putting Boost’s platform technology to work,” said Jamie Bacher, CEO and co-founder, Boost Biomes. “Yara’s evaluation of our technology, and our resulting joint program, further validates that our platform generates a unique data set that can be exploited for many diverse microbiome applications in food and agriculture.”

And though this partnership with Yara is a new step for Boost, Bacher noted that the company is open to further partnerships.

“While Boost develops products internally, we are also ready to work with partners on novel microbiome applications.  We look forward to working closely with the team at Yara to develop novel products for farmers, to address their most pressing challenges.”

One of the most pressing production concerns for farmers is efficiency in fertilizer usage. Not only is fertilizer a major cost point in the agricultural cycle, but is also a key focus of environmental damage in the case of overuse.

These pressures can be significantly lifted through greater understanding of microbiomes and the development of biological products, representing a potential that is attractive not only to farmers, but to investors and international companies as well.

As far back as 2015, DuPoint announced it had acquired California-based microbiome company, Taxon Biosciences Inc. for an undisclosed amount as a move to gain an edge in biological products for row crops, fruits, and vegetables. 

And though once considered fringe, biologicals and the startups developing them are quickly populating portfolios.

“We are excited to collaborate with, and invest in, Boost Biomes as part of Yara’s focus on innovative microbial approaches within our crop nutrition solutions,” said Joacim Christiansen, SVP, Yara Farming Solutions.

“A key priority for farmers is efficient and effective use of fertilizers. Boost’s technology has the promise to unlock new means to enhance crops’ nutrient uptake. This partnership underlines Yara’s commitment to further developing our biostimulants product range under the BIOTRYG platform as part of our strategy to promote sustainable farming practices.”

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.