Farmers rejoice! Agriculture tech startup Inocucor gets $6 million
June 3rd, 2016
Offered by Montreal Technology
Inocucor has raised a serious amount of money to aid in its mission of developing sustainable microbial crop accelerators.
The Montreal team is helping farmers feed humanity through a bio-stimulant product product that speeds delivery of nutrients to plants, improving crop yields.
Two Canadian and two U.S.-based investing firms, along with a few board members rounded out the funding.
Cycle Capital Management, a Montreal Cleantech venture capital fund and early investor in Inocucor took part, as did Desjardins Innovatech, a Canadian cooperative financial group with more than $200 billion in assets. Red Metal Capital, a Michigan-based family office fund and Closed Loop Capital an early-stage agriculture technology and food system innovation fund based in greater Philadelphia rounded out the funding group.
“Our business model calls for a range of bio-based products that ultimately will help farmers feed a growing population with fewer or no chemical inputs,” said CEO Donald R. Marvin.
Inocucor will use the funding to “scale up” its patented bio-stimulant product, Garden Solution, produced through a fermentation process similar to winemaking. The product can isolate and combine multiple strains of naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria into powerful bio-stimulants. Those powerful stimulants then increase the microbial diversity of soils and speed delivery of nutrients to plants, thereby improving crop yields.
According to Inocucor, its product targets the “phyto-microbiome,” or the seeds, plants, root systems and the soil surrounding them. It then employs live microbes to actively improve the health of the entire phyto-microbiome.
Marvin said Inocucor’s growth strategy will focused on commercial partnerships with its intellectual property as a key ingredient for new bio-stimulation, bio-fertility and bio-protection products for large-scale production farmers. It also plans to acquire competitors in order to speed up the commercialization of its proprietary microbial consortia technology.
The company said that recent field trials employing Inocucor’s biological accelerators with industry and academic partners in Canada and the U.S. have produced “significant yield increases in high-value produce and row crops.”
In June, the company will launch a follow-on equity financing round to support opening a U.S. office. Moreover, Inocucor will look to expand commercialization in North and South America.
