By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media
St. Louis, Missouri-based Quercus Biosolutions has reached a major milestone in its journey. The company announced it has emerged out of stealth mode following the successful completion of a pre-seed round. As a pioneering biotechnology company specializing in addressing the biggest challenges in crop protection, Quercus Bio is looking to to overhaul crop protection with generative AI-powered mini proteins. Quercus Bio is keeping the size of its seed-round and names of its backers close to the vest.
In conjunction with its official launch, Quercus has inked a strategic partnership with Ordaos Bio for the latter company’s generative AI platform, which was originally created for human medicine. Quercus will direct that technology solution, which it says has been “extensively developed and validated across multiple biopharma use cases,” toward crop agriculture applications.
Since inception in 2024, Quercus Bio quickly proved that its mini-proteins work in live plants. This work has been accelerated through a fast-track partnership with Solis Agrosciences, through which the companies have enabled a what they describe as a “seamless and highly efficient pipeline for testing, data generation, optimization and validation of novel, product-development-ready solutions.”
Crop farmers have been facing a one-two punch of declining income and crop losses, exacerbated by a business model with tight margins. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, U.S. net farm income was projected at $140.7 billion for 2024, reflecting a decline of 4.1% year-over-year and a steeper 22.6% drop from the 2022 peak. Crop losses from pests, disease and catastrophic weather are responsible for billions of dollars in crop losses each year.
The ag industry is in need of crop protectants that are safe, targeted and easy on the environment. Quercus Bio’s approach is to harness generative AI innovations for what it describes as an “effective and affordable biology-based solution for crop protection.”
Quercus Biosolutions Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Jon Lightner stated, “Our vision at Quercus is to leverage gen-AI to rethink the development of crop protection solutions. The Ordaos bio-design engine and enabling lab-in-the-loop platform provides us with an unprecedented ability to rapidly design and optimize bespoke mini-proteins for agricultural applications, setting the stage for transformative impact in agriculture and adjacent bio-based industries.”
Ordaos Bio CEO Dave Longo said, “We have spent years refining our AI-driven mini-protein design platform to deliver precision-engineered solutions in biopharma, and its application to agriculture represents a powerful new frontier. By integrating gen-AI, multitask meta-learning, and reinforcement learning with Quercus’ rapid-feedback approach, we are confident in the ability to generate highly optimized and commercially important product solutions.”
Quercus Bio Executive Chairman and Co-Founder Matt Crisp said, “Quercus is at the forefront of the next wave of innovation in crop agriculture. We have formed key strategic partnerships and enlisted seasoned leaders who understand the synergies that are created at the convergence of cutting-edge technologies already accelerating solutions in human medicine. Our rapid progress underscores the disruptive potential of our platform and ability to drive innovation in ways that this market category has never experienced.”
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