Charlie Walch, Pluton CEO
Note: this article was edited on 2/19/2021 to add a paragraph at the bottom.
Pluton Biosciences just graduated from Illumina Accelerator, the ‘company creation engine’ started by San Diego-based, global DNA sequencing leader Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN). Pluton CEO Charlie Walch tells the 4thEst8 the sequencing work done on the coast validated Pluton’s proof of concept (to find novel microbes) and while in California, he picked up two San Francisco-area angel investors.
Pluton is a microbial testing and discovery company, focused on finding unique microbes to replace synthetic chemical applications in agriculture, using a technique called bio-mining. The company was founded in 2017 and has 15 employees. The two new angel investors are Wing VC and First In Ventures. Each pumped $100K each into the company, according to Walch.
Microbes can do a lot of things, and they are readily found in soil.. the trick is finding ones that do a task that fills a commercial need. In this case, Walch is looking for microbes that eat or kill mosquito larvae. There’s a couple of commercially available microbes that do that right now, but Walch says he’s looking for the ‘Michael Jordan’ of mosquito-eating microbes. The time spent at the Illumina Accelerator helped them get through a lot of DNA sequencing – and finding 10 microbes that eat mosquito larvae not only proves the Pluton model but vastly expands their database of other heretofore unknown microbes.
Geek Note: A terabase is 1012 base pairs
“We extracted the DNA from close to 3000 different soil samples and that yielded about 15 terabases worth of data, which is a lot of genetic code,” said Walch. “We found 10 new microbes (that eat mosquito larvae)… we create experiments in the lab, grow the microbes out of the soil and test them against the experiment’s subject, in this case killing mosquito larvae.”
Next step:
“The next step is to raise funds so we can continue to build out this database and also start a whole new set of lab experiments so we can have multiple candidates for use in crop protection and agriculture,” said Walch. “We’d like to do an ‘A’ round before the year is out.”
Mid-2020’s inclusion in the Illumina Accelerator came hot on the heels of Pluton’s acceptance into IN2, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator, that came with $250,000 cash and technical research services at the Danforth Center in St. Louis.
At the start off 2020 Pluton acquired Inotech Laboratories in Maryland Heights, Mo. after Walch brought in 38 investors to raise nearly $850,000 in what PitchBook calls equity crowdfunding. The move tapped Pluton into the $7 billion global microbial testing business, but more importantly — for the bio-mining side of the business — Pluton picked up lab space and a potential treasure-trove of microbial samples. With the recent angel investments, Walch says Pluton has raised about $1.5 million.
Added:
In late February, Pluton was accepted into the Plug and Play Tech Center’s agtech accelerator, headquartered in Silicone Valley.
“We are excited to join the Plug and Play accelerator. Besides expanding our network into the Silicon Valley investing community, Plug and Play gives Pluton a chance to refine our commercialization strategy for our ecofriendly crop protection and biostimulant products,” said Pluton CEO Charlie Walch. “We look forward to meeting one-on-one with some top industry leaders in agriculture.”
