Impetus Agriculture just won $750,000 in the Radicle Natural Plant Protection Challenge, by UPL.
Martha Schlicher, Impetus CEO
“We’re going to plow that money… into our current funding to really try to accelerate both our greenhouse and our field testing,” CEO Martha Schlicher told bizblip, adding that Impetus was one of four finalists out of 237 contestants from 55 countries.
The Radicle NPP Challenge is a partnership between company-building platform Radicle Growth, and multi-national agricultural solutions company, UPL.
Impetus Agriculture focuses on developing novel solutions for crop pest control, specifically targeting insect pests which can devastate agricultural yields. The company was founded in the summer of 2018 and is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. It has seven full-time employees.
Impetus raised about $7 million to date, from a combination of equity and convertible note investment rounds, prior to this $750,000 win. Early support came from the Yield Lab and BioGenerator (where Schlicher serves as Entrepreneur in Resident) as well as the seed company KWS. The company also secured significant funding from a major unnamed agriculture multinational corporation through a collaborative research deal struck a couple of years ago. Additionally, Impetus received a Wells Fargo Innovation Award in 2023 while partnering with the Danforth Plant Science Center. Next stop for Impetus and Schlicher will be at the upcoming InvestMidwest venture conference in Kansas City next month.
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