Investors don’t generally pump a lot of money into a startup unless their intellectual property is locked down, but a 20 employee agtech firm that raised more than $7 million in venture capital just got its first patent.
‘Cover Crop’
CoverCress is selectively breeding the pennycress plant to reduce the fiber in its seeds by as much as 50 percent, thereby increasing both the oil it produces, and the nutritional value of the meal that remains after the oil is extracted. This patent covers taking that meal and turning it into animal feed. Unmodified pennycress variants are generally considered weeds, but CoverCress is developing a variety (also called CoverCress) intended as a ‘cover crop’ – to improve soil conditions and diversity over the winter, in between fall harvest and spring planting of row crops like corn and soybean. The bonus is that with the lower volume of fiber, CoverCress seeds effectively produce more oil and plant proteins.
Impossible Burger?
The goal is “to make the meal more nutritious for the animal, and eventually, I’m convinced it will be made into the food grade protein, and will be a source of protein for plant based food such as Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat” CTO and principal investigator Tim Ulmasov, Ph.D. told the 4thEst8. “That’s just a matter of time.”
This spring CoverCress raised $5 million in a round led by Fulcrum Global Capital and Hermann Companies with other investors including Prelude Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, the St. Louis Arch Angels, Prolog Ventures and some CoverCress founders and employees, bringing VC raised to $7 million. The company has a slew of SBIR grants on their own, as well as a $10 million grant, shared with
16 universities, to co-develop and commercialize this crop.
Other patents
“We have a whole bunch of other patent applications,” Ulmasov said. “Investors have been investing in us knowing confidently that these applications will mature into patents. Venture capital investors are very sophisticated and we have also strategic investors such as Monsanto and Bayer, and they do due diligence.”
This winter CoverCress will plant their product on limited acreage, not for commercialization this year, but to generate the seed stock they’ll need to sell farmers in the fall of 2021. Meanwhile, they’re still developing new varieties with new traits.
2021 planting
“For each seed we plant this September, we can expect up to 500 seeds per plant,” Ulmasov said. “The most exciting opportunity will be to launch the product next year on limited acreage with farmers.”
