Six tiny agtech companies landed $250,000 today, and even if your business has nothing to do with agriculture – if you are in Missouri this will likely end up helping you out. The 4thEst8 talked with experts, and spells it out in this exclusive story.
First off: the money
Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) put out a press release this morning to announce that these companies are getting $250,000 in cash and technical research services.
- AgroSpheres – Charlottesville, VA
- Chi Botanic – Sarasota, FL
- EarthSense – Champaign, IL
- mobius – Lenoir City, TN
- Pluton Biosciences – St. Louis, MO
- TerViva – Oakland, CA
“All companies come with very early-stage technologies,” Claire Kinlaw, Ph.D. told the 4thEst8. Kinlaw is the Director of Innovation Commercialization at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. “The company gets a chunk of money directly and the Danforth Center is also funded on behalf of the company to conduct collaborative research” aimed at validating the technology.
Besides farmers, who cares?
“Even if (the startups) ultimately develop their full enterprise in another city… the partnerships and relationships they form here last over time and may result in a future decision to relocate their enterprise, or a unit of their enterprise, here in St. Louis,” said Dick Fleming, CEO of Community Development Ventures. “We’ve got a nice progression of the ecosystem developing in the life sciences.”
IN2 is just a part of that ecosystem. It is a partnership between the philanthropic Wells Fargo Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. They’re trying to spur economic growth by helping startups validate sustainable technologies. The five year old program took on agriculture as a focus an pulled in the Danforth Center as a program partner. IN2 has also thrown some money at a couple St. Louis organizations that feed tiny startups to the IN2 program: BioGenerator/BioSTL and, just this past March, the Yield Lab Institute.
“The institute works with very early-stage agtech companies to help them get into shape to be accepted into incubators, accelerators or to be considered for investment,” Brandon Day, COO of the Yield Lab Institute told the 4thEst8. The philanthropic cousin to the Yield Lab venture capital firm was reportedly awarded about $100,000 by IN2 in March. “What we’re doing (with the money) is providing a mentorship and entrepreneur networking program. I’m working with two to three agtech startups, and depending on what stage of development they’re at, I’ll help them with business mentorship, coaching, strategy, introduction to potential partners, market validation.”
Lets put a face on this.
“What we’re doing is producing aloe cells that grow in a flask or reactor, kinda like how you’d make beer,” Chi Botanic CEO Jonathan Meuser, Ph.D. told the 4thEst8. This tiny, two person company, isn’t the only one doing this kind of thing – but they bring more to the table. “We’re using robotics and other ways to do things at scale that you couldn’t normally do with plants because they’re in this format like a microbe.”
Meuser says that the aloe products in stores are mostly water, and that the powder used to make them sells for between $170 and $400 a kilogram because of costly processing and shipping. That’s why Chi Botanic is starting with aloe cells, but they have other things they’re testing out at Danforth. He can’t disclose specifics, but says he’s working on plant cell cultures for partners involved in industries ranging from nutraceuticals, to flavors, and fragrances.
“Essentially (Danforth) is a bolt-on back end to our process, “ Meuser said. “What Danforth really brings to the table is the ability to test different culture conditions, and test our different strains… to see what they are making.”
Chi Botanic is a two person company right now, but there’s a whole pipeline of resources here in Missouri to help it grow. While it may choose to stay in Sarasota if it gets big, at least some of the companies in the IN2 incubator will move here. And if they grow, that means loads of money will be spent right here – on space, equipment, and people. Money that could come from local sources, but is more likely to come from outside our ecosystem.
“Last year two of the (IN2 cohort) companies were St. Louis based, and one company – for reasons that included participation in the IN2 program, actually moved to St. Louis. That is Aker,” said Kinlaw of the Danforth Center. “They were based in Chicago and Minnesota, but as part of getting significant funding from a St. Louis based venture capital (firm) and in part to facilitate their participation in the IN2 program, they moved to St. Louis.”
