With an eye to an upcoming Series A raise, Pluton Biosciences promoted Brian Throm to Head of Business Development after taking him in a little over a year ago.
Barry Goldman, Pluton Biosciences CEO
“Brian is one of those people who is trained as a bioengineer, from Mizzou, with an M.B.A. He knows how to move in this space and create business,” founder and newly named CEO Barry Goldman told the 4thEst8. “He did an internship with Monsanto Ventures… and has been doing great work helping us find companies, write proposals — we needed help in the development space.”
Goldman stepped up to the CEO role earlier this month. The 4thEst8 had an extensive video interview with him in Roundup (see link, below). In a press release Throm says he is responsible for investor relations.
“My goal is to clearly show investors how Pluton creates valuable commercial assets and is poised to become the next biotech unicorn,” said Throm.
The company also announced in their release the hiring of lead scientist, Benjamin Wolf PhD, something 4thEst8 readers knew about back in early March when the company landed a deal with Bayer’s Global Climate Change group. That calls on Pluton to find microbes that pull greenhouse gasses from the air and turn them into fertilizer. Financial terms were not disclosed for the one-year deal.
Money moves
The 4thEst8 reported in February on then CEO Charlie Walsh’s hopes of closing a Series A round before 2021 ends.
This February the company was accepted into the Plug and Play Tech Center’s agtech accelerator, headquartered in Silicone Valley. On exiting the Illumina Accelerator, Pluton picked up two California angel investors, introduced through that accelerator. In mid-2020 the company was accepted into the IN2 Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator. That came with $250,000 in cash and technical research services at the Danforth Center in St. Louis.
At the start of 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. Altogether, Walch said Pluton has raised about $1.5 million.
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, has 15 employees and is headquartered in the Center for Emerging Technologies in the Cortex district of St. Louis.
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More news about Pluton on the 4thEst8:
GENOMIC STARTUP EXITS INCUBATOR; PICKS UP SAN FRANCISCO ANGELS
PLUTON SUPERCHARGES ITS RACE TO MARKET
IN2 SUPERCHARGES SIX AG-TECH STARTUPS
