Company hails ‘enormous’ potential of micropeptides in crop protection after fundraise

07-Aug-2024 - Last updated on 08-Aug-2024 at 07:58 GMT

French company Micropep recently enjoyed a $29 million funding round

Micropep Technologies, which creates natural crop protection and stimulation products using micropeptides, has announced a $29 million Series B funding round and unveiled a proprietary discovery platform called Krisalix.

Micropeptides are short natural protein molecules that play crucial roles in various plant biological processes, such as germination and reproduction.

Via its platform, the company develop efficient and affordable products for farmers, aimed at protecting crops and enhancing agricultural sustainability.

The company collaborates with global partners to bring micropeptide-based solutions to market, aiming to secure the future of global food production and adapt agricultural systems to the impacts of climate change.

The round was led by Zebra Impact Ventures, and BPI Green Tech Investment. All existing investors, Fall Line Capital, FMC Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, Supernova Invest, and IRDI Capital Investissement also participated, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $51.8 million.

“Our renewed investment is driven by the impressive strides the company has made over the past few years,” said Baptiste Tellier, managing director of Fall Line Capital.

“Micropep has maintained the field efficacy of its micropeptides while reducing doses in field trials and lowering biomanufacturing costs. The integration of advanced generative artificial intelligence tools into its discovery platform has also significantly shortened design turnaround time. These remarkable achievements underscore the tremendous potential of Micropep.”

Micropeptide active ingredients set to expand

Founded in 2016 as a spin-off from a French plant research laboratory, Micropep plans to use the Series B funding to accelerate go-to-market strategy through partnerships, complete the regulatory studies of the first biofungicide molecule, and expand its pipeline of micropeptide active ingredients on the Krisalix platform.

Micropep said its Krisalix enables it to discover new micropeptide-based active ingredients much faster and more efficiently than traditional methods.

Finding the correct micropeptide sequence for a given function is not easy. Turning it into an efficient and affordable product that farmers can use is even more complicated. Krisalix combines proprietary micropeptide design algorithms with a unique suite of bioassays to measure efficacy, stability, and production feasibility. Together, these capabilities enable Micropep to rapidly discover the most promising micropeptide molecules for crop protection.

"This new round of funding, happening in a particularly complex financing environment, is a great mark of recognition of both the exceptional results we achieved so far at Micropep and the future potential of our micropeptide discovery platform and first active ingredients," said Thomas Laurent, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Micropep.

4X1A8056 — Micropeps can offer a wide range of applications with ‘unparalleled’ potential for new and safer crop protection active ingredients, said Thomas Laurent, chief executive officer and co-founder of Micropep

"Micropeptides have a unique value proposition, combining new modes of actions, strong efficacy in the field, great safety profile, and affordable costs for farmers,” Laurent continued.

“We are uniquely positioned to provide a whole new category of sustainable active ingredients based on micropeptides to the crop protection industry, working hand-in-hand with selected partners at different stages of the product development lifecycle. This new round of financing will help us strengthen our existing relationships and build new strategic alliances with leading R&D, manufacturing, commercial, and distribution companies in our industry. We believe this is the only sustainable way to scale a company like ours and bring our micropeptide active ingredients to as many farmers as possible worldwide.”

“In parallel, we will continue our research efforts in France exploring innovative ways to grow our proprietary discovery platform and enhance our testing capabilities to maximize impact. Our investors have shown confidence in our approach, and we will reward them with an ongoing commitment to creating innovative, sustainable agtech solutions for a better world,” he said.

Ag biologicals a crucial part of fourth agricultural revolution

He added that a fourth agricultural revolution is under way, with many disruptive technologies in fields such as biotechnologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, and data being implemented in agriculture. “The combination of these innovations will certainly change the way farmers cultivate their crops across the globe. In fact, change is already happening, but massive adoption has not happened yet as agriculture is a unique industry with long adoption cycles. But the potential is enormous.”

Among these different areas of innovation, ag biologicals is probably one of the most active segments, driven by the urgent need of farmers to find alternatives to conventional chemicals. According to Laurent the ‘biologicals 2.0’ category, which includes new biochemical compounds such as RNA, proteins, and peptides, has a unique potential to provide farmers with a new set of crop protection active ingredients with novel modes of action that leave lower residue and have good compatibility with existing solutions.

“At Micropep, we decided to become the world expert in micropeptides for crop protection. We define micropeptides as short, natural, linear peptide molecules with different modes of action, including the regulation of specific plant genes or proteins. They can offer a wide range of applications with unparalleled potential for new and safer crop protection active ingredients.”