BioConsortia

California-based BioConsortia is developing pest management, biofertilizer, and biostimulant products for applications in fruit and vegetable crops, turf, and landscape based on the company’s “Advanced Microbial Selection” (AMS) platform. The company uses AMS as an R&D platform for microbiome analysis, alongside machine learning for gene editing to identify teams of microbes that improve plant performance and increase crop yields. 

As of December 2022, the company had not yet launched a product and was developing a range of nitrogen-fixing biofertilizers using its AMS platform. The company stated that it was developing a biofertilizer for row crops such as corn and wheat that can reduce chemical fertilizer usage and increase fertilizer use efficiency. Its AMS platform had already generated microbe “leads” and delivered them for multi-year field trials to be conducted across multiple crop species. In February 2021, BioConsortia expanded its R&D team and laboratories by moving to a new 15,000 sq ft facility (with an extra 5,000 sq ft unfurnished space) in Davis, California. In December 2022, the company added two new nematicides into the development pipeline validated through field trials, bringing the number of nematicides for seed treatments in the mid-to-late-development stage to five. In April 2023, the company announced its largest proprietary field trial program to date, with hundreds of tests planned or underway for the 2023 field season for developing the company's new products for nitrogen fixation, nematode control, disease control, and plant biostimulation. 

In September 2023, BioConsortia expanded into Brazil with microbial bio-control products and nitrogen-fixing technology. Recently, In January 2024,The company announced the development of nitrogen-fixing products to expand the addressable market to new crop opportunities.

Key customers and partnerships

In December 2020, the company partnered with The Mosaic Company, the largest producer of potash and phosphate fertilizers in the US, to develop and launch nitrogen-fixing biofertilizers for non-legume row crops including corn and wheat. According to the partnership, The Mosaic Company received exclusive rights to the nitrogen-fixing technology and distribution for row crops in the Americas, whereas BioConsortia retained the rights to the technology for fruit, vegetable, turf, and ornamental crops for use outside the Americas. This partnership was extended under a new agreement in March 2022, where The Mosaic Company received rights to develop biofertilizers for all crops, including corn, wheat, rice, fruit, and vegetables, and distribute them to the Asian markets including China, Thailand, and Vietnam. 

Funding and financials 

In April 2024, the company secured USD 15 million from an internal funding round to expand microbial product development to increase crop yields and broaden field trial programs. In March 2018, BioConsortia raised USD 10 million in Series D funding led by Otter Capital. The company planned to use the funds for the commercialization of its products and the expansion and development of its AMS platform.