August 10, 2018

Inari, a mission-driven plant breeding technology company, has raised a $40 million Series B, bringing its total funding to $55 million since its founding by Flagship Pioneering in 2016.

Led by Flagship, this round was also joined by Acre Venture Partners and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Launched by Flagship two years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the leadership of the firm’s general partner Ignacio Martinez and CEO and general partner David Berry, Inari was spun out in July of this year with a mission to transform agriculture and mitigate its impact on society and the environment through new approaches to plant breeding. Just prior to the spin-out, Ponsi Trivisvavet, former COO of Indigo Agriculture (itself a Flagship company) was named CEO of Inari in April.

“We are committed to building our agriculture life sciences platform at Flagship Pioneering to help the world solve one of its most pressing problems: how to grow crops while also taking care of the planet,” said Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of Flagship in July. “The Flagship team conceived, capitalized, and grew Inari within our enterprise for over two years, and we are proud to see it spun-out today.”

With a goal of significantly reducing the costs and time associated with breeding, Inari brings together biological and data sciences to enable its team and scientific partners to breed new crops that are better suited to localized environments. Using computational agronomy and gene editing practices, Inari is initially targeting the development of wheat, soybeans, and corn that will provide higher yields,  need fewer inputs and fertilizers, and which will result in higher value crops for growers.  

Using seeds supplied by academic partners including Texas A&M  University and the University of Nebraska, Inari’s technology is currently in greenhouse trials. Once successfully completed, the company plans to partner with as-of unnamed seed companies toward commercialization.

“We are very proud of the past 24 months of progress,” said Martinez. “Our scientists have developed breakthrough technologies in multiple scientific areas, while developing a growing portfolio of intellectual property. We are equally excited about the unique and experienced team of scientists and scientific advisors that we have brought on board.”

The company plans to use the funds raised through this round to support the acceleration of its ability to transform technologies into crops, to broaden its cutting-edge tools, and to add to its diverse 80-person team of scientists, statisticians, engineers, and advisors that each bring unique expertise in biology, agronomy, data sciences, and software engineering to the table.

“As the challenges to global food supplies continue to grow, we need more creative ways to help farmers increase their profitability and grow higher quality crops, while remaining environmentally respectful and providing nutritional food for consumers,” said Inari CEO Ponsi Trivisvavet. “With this additional financing, we are well positioned to even further accelerate our ambitions to become a global player in food and agriculture.”

-Lynda Kiernan