Resurrect Bio, a UK-based biotechnology startup seeking to revolutionize the agricultural industry, announced the successful completion of a seed investment round amounting to £1.61M to develop disease-resistant crops. The investment was led by SynBioVen and included participation from UKI2S, AgFunder, and SHAKE Climate Change Accelerator.
A spin-off company from The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, Resurrect Bio is developing a platform that employs gene editing techniques to bolster the innate immune system of crops. The goal is to enhance crops’ resistance to disease, a critical objective if we aim to decrease agrichemical use while feeding a growing global population.
Leveraging the latest scientific discoveries, Resurrect Bio combines computational biology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and synthetic biology methods to identify and resurrect native disease-resistance genes in crops rapidly. With this recent injection of funding, the company is poised to accelerate product development and reinforce its underlying disease resistance trait-discovery platform.
The company collaborates with key seed industry members to expedite the delivery of gene-edited, disease-resistant seeds. This partnership is expected to provide farmers with options to improve their crop yield and decrease their reliance on agrichemicals.
The recent royal assent of the Precision Breeding Act has sparked anticipation that gene-edited crops will become increasingly accessible in England.
Expressing his excitement over the successful funding round, Dr. Cian Duggan, CEO of Resurrect Bio, said, “Resurrect Bio is thrilled to have secured this investment from such a strong group of partners who share our vision of delivering disease-resistant crops to farmers. This funding will enable us to accelerate our mission and make significant strides towards more sustainable agriculture.”
Antoine Pechin from SynBioVen also expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership with Resurrect Bio, stating that the company’s unique technology reduces the use of agrichemicals and helps increase crop yields. This, in turn, contributes to addressing the mounting food security issues the world is facing.
Oliver Sexton, Investment Director at UKI2S, lauded Resurrect Bio as an example of the world-changing technology the fund supports at an early stage. He added, “Its platform will lead to reduced pesticide use, and UKI2S is delighted to help Cian and the team build their technology.”
Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash
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