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BioConsortia seeks regulatory approvals for its first biologics products
Sep. 16, 2019
BioConsortia, Inc
United StatesFollow
United States
Agricultural technology company BioConsortia Inc. is moving several of its crop-support products toward commercialization, which would provide is first revenue.The Davis-based company this month submitted its microbiological biopesticides, biostimulants and fertilizer efficiency products for registration with environmental and agricultural regulators.
Registration approval would mean that the products can be used in commercial agriculture, possibly by 2021.
Since 2014, BioConsortia has raised more than $40 million from Bay Area venture capital funds Khosla Ventures and Otter Capital.
“We are a large and well-funded startup,” CEO Marcus Meadows-Smith said in an interview. BioConsortia has 40 employees, and 14 of them have doctoral degrees. Meadows-Smith founded the company in Davis to have access to the scientists in this region.
He anticipates BioConsortia will raise another round of funding this year, both from its two primary venture capital investors, and others, to get the company to its commercial launch of products. BioConsortia has been spending about $10 million annually in development since it started up in Davis in 2014, he said.
The company is trying to get two biological pesticides registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, which is a two-year process, Meadows-Smith said, adding that its biologically based fungicides and nematicides have increased crop yields by 15%.
For its fertilizer-use efficiency and biostimulant products, BioConsortia is seeking registration with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Meadows-Smith said the growth-stimulant products also increased yield by 15%.
BioConsortia's research process works somewhat like those of plant breeders, Meadows-Smith said. The company stresses plants, and then selects the hardiest ones for more testing. The company can then isolate beneficial soil microbes from those plants. It also makes sure that those microbes can survive the most common fungicide and mildew treatments.
The seeds are coated in the microbe, and when planted, the microbes colonize the growing root system in a symbiotic relationship to help the plant with nutrient acquisition from the soil, he said.
“This is a relationship that has existed in nature for millions of years. We’re harnessing it,” Meadows-Smith said.
Before leading BioConsortia, Meadows-Smith was CEO at Davis biologics pioneer AgraQuest Inc., which he sold to Bayer CropScience for $500 million in 2012. Otter Capital had also been an investor in AgraQuest.
By Mark Anderson
By Mark Anderson
Source: Sacramento Business Journal
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