Benson Hill has raised $150 million in a Series D funding round, as it aims to scale up its crop breeding platform and provide more nutritious and sustainable options.
The round was led by Wheatsheaf Group and GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, with participation from strategic and environmental, social and governance focused investors across the food and agriculture value chain.
New and returning investors include Argonautic Ventures, CDPQ, Louis Dreyfus Company, iSelect Fund, Prelude Ventures, and S2G Ventures.
Based in the US, Benson Hill claims it develops and commercialises healthier and more sustainable food and ingredients options using its crop design platform, CropOS. The engine combines data science and machine learning with biology and genetics to produce highly productive and nutritious plants.
The food tech company says it will use the capital to scale up the commercial operations of it platform across multiple food and ingredients markets, expand its partner efforts, as well as accelerate the commercial launch of its ‘ultra-high protein’ soybean varieties in 2021.
“We are excited to contribute to the scale up of Benson Hill’s work to advance a sustainable future of food by realising the value creation potential of technology-enabled innovation,” said Max Clegg, head of Louis Dreyfus Company’s corporate venture capital program, LDC Innovations.
He added: “The power of genomics and genetic diversity is largely untapped, and we believe that the company’s technology and collaborative model unlocks efficiencies and new product differentiation for stakeholders across the value chain, from farmers to end-consumers.”
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