The BioGenerator, the non-profit venture development organization of BioSTL, facilitates the formation of successful, sustainable bioscience companies in the St. Louis region. It provides start-up bioscience companies with pre-seed and seed investment funds, shared lab space with specialized equipment, and in-depth management support.

BioGenerator

The Yield Lab invests in AgriFood Tech companies with technologies focused on crops, animal health, digital agriculture, logistics, and food ingredients. Initial investments range from $100,000 – $1.5M.

The Yield Lab

Lewis & Clark AgriFood is a group of experienced investors, scientists, operators, and owners who are passionate about investing in companies that are at the forefront of food and agriculture innovation. They look for companies that deliver benefits to the stakeholders in the food and agriculture sector, from the producer, through the supply chain, all the way to the consumer. The firm invests in companies that are at the growth stage of their evolution, poised to scale their technology to a national or global scale.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood

Founded in 2000 as a private health insurance intermediary, iSelect's momentum over recent years has resulted in the addition of both life and motor insurance categories to its growing portfolio.  At iSelect  get that most people find insurance, utilities and personal finance boring. But iSelect understand that it’s really important to always get these things right.  As Australia’s life admin store, we’ll help you take care of the boring but important stuff. iSelect are proud of the service we provide to millions of Australians who seek our expert advice each year on some of life’s most important purchase decisions.  iSelect is much more than just another online comparison website. Comparing online is just the first step in our personalised comparison and expert advisory service. That’s why most of our customers choose to speak over the phone with one of our 500 highly-trained expert advisers at iSelect HQ.  Our dedicated departments cover all of life’s essentials, from choosing the right health or life insurance policy through to refinancing your home loan. iSelect can sort out your energy and broadband connections, and even take care of your car insurance.  iSelect compare and sell some of Australia’s biggest brands and are always adding more. With plenty of partners and thousands of policies, plans and products, we’ll give you the confidence to make the right call on some of the things that matter most. So you can spend time doing, well… anything else.  iSelect are proud to be 100% independently-owned, and unlike other comparison services, we are not owned by an insurance company and we do not own any of the companies or brands whose products we sell.  As well as our flagship iSelect brand, the iSelect Group also owns personal finance comparison website InfoChoice and energy comparison website Energy Watch.

iSelect

Missouri Technology Corporation is an American venture capital firm that promotes entrepreneurship and the growth of high-tech companies. Promoting entrepreneurship and fostering the growth of emerging, high-tech companies in Missouri

Missouri Technology Corporation

Centennial Investors was created to meet the early capital needs of university and private sector entrepreneurs. The organization will assist with bringing to market exciting ideas generated in university labs and private businesses.  Often referred to as “Angel Investing,” this private capital is an important requirement for creating new products, services and jobs in our community.

Centennial Investors

Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund is an outgrowth of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest platform, a national initiative launched in 2014 to spotlight emerging startup hubs. Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund invests in seed- and early-stage companies located outside of New York City, Silicon Valley, and Boston. By partnering with regional ecosystem leaders and co-investors, Rise of the Rest is helping to build and scale the next wave of transformational companies. The Rise of the Rest Seed Funds are backed by a group of iconic entrepreneurs and business leaders committed to the vision that the next great startups will be located outside of the coastal tech hubs.

Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund

Fulcrum Global Capital invests in companies disrupting agriculture and animal health.

Fulcrum Global Capital

CIG Spectrum is a family office holding company with private investments in numerous operating companies, credit and real estate.

CIG Spectrum Capital

QRM Capital is an investment firm. QRM develops industry-leading risk management principles, practices, and models, and provides clients with the advice, knowledge, and tools necessary to adopt those innovations. Since 1987, QRM has partnered with clients to enhance their ability to measure risk, identify profitable opportunities, and make sound financial decisions.

QRM Capital

Plastomics

Plastomics is a biotechnology startup that focuses in developing the next generation of crops by using chloroplast genetic engineering. Its technology platform is applicable to different crops and traits. Plastomics provides solutions for the many current industry challenges. The company was founded in 2016 and headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

<div><p>Plastomics uses chloroplast engineering to develop the next generation of biotech crops with the ability to withstand diseases, weeds and insects while delivering higher yields. Plastomics’ trait delivery platform provides solutions to tackle biotech seed industry challenges, including producing multi-trait products with complex trait integration and breeding programs, increased pest resistance development and the inability to extend the reach of biotech traits without outcrossing. Plastomics offers simplified product development, improved products, and new market opportunities. The privately held company’s technology provides benefits such as simplified breeding and trait introgression, more powerful traits, higher yields, easy trait stacking and containment.</p></div>

Enhancing seed and crop traits via biotechnology

Crop Biotech

Plastomics Inc. Names New CEO as Novel Trait Delivery Platform Progresses

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    Plastomics uses chloroplast engineering to develop the next generation of biotech crops with the ability to withstand diseases, weeds and insects while delivering higher yields. Plastomics’ trait delivery platform provides solutions to tackle biotech seed industry challenges, including producing multi-trait products with complex trait integration and breeding programs, increased pest resistance development and the inability to extend the reach of biotech traits without outcrossing. Plastomics offers simplified product development, improved products, and new market opportunities. The privately held company’s technology provides benefits such as simplified breeding and trait introgression, more powerful traits, higher yields, easy trait stacking and containment.
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<p><span>Lone Star Industrial Materials is a cultivation company that manufactures raw hemp materials. Its product portfolio consists of bast fiber, refined cellulose, and hemp hurd, seeds, hearts, fines and oil. Additionally, it offers retail products such as HempSorb, animal bedding, and hemp control socks. Hemp requires less land, improves nutritional health, is environmentally friendly, helps soil regeneration, grows in various climates, absorbs a great deal of CO2, is a rotational crop and reduces waste. Hemp is used in construction, insulation, bioplastics, and as hemp wood. The privately held company has developed an end-to-end supply chain from seed genetics to delivery.</span></p>

Lone Star Industrial Materials

<p><span>PLANTeDIT operates in the plant genome editing field to produce improved crop species through transformation technology and a CRISPR/Cas9 delivery system. It produces regulatory-free, consumer-oriented, DNA-free and sustainable genome edited crops and biopharmaceuticals. The company’s offering includes non-transgenic high oleic soya, which is produced by mutating the FAD2 gene, which eventually increases the oleic oil content in the soya bean. This product was developed through a collaboration between PLANTeDIT and ToolGen. The organization has also collaborated with RebelBio, University College Cork and IAPB. Headquartered in Cork, Ireland, PLANTeDIT is privately held.</span></p>

PLANTEDIT

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    Amforo is a biotech company that focuses on developing foods that are high in protein by enhancing the nutritional density of food and feed crops through the platform of technologies it has built. The company offers a family of feed and food crops, including primary ingredients for suppliers of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. In addition, it is focused on developing a low-cost, plant-based source of protein for farmed seafood. Moreover, Amforo is pursuing approaches to enhance the nutritional profile of crops as well as their protein content, which entails optimizing amino acid profiles, modifying carbohydrates, and enhancing micronutrients.
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Amfora

<p><span>BioHeuris provides weed management solutions by combining synthetic biology and gene editing to develop herbicide resistant crops. Its offering includes Heurik, a technology platform that integrates rational design and directed evolution to identify mutations that confer herbicide tolerance, while Swap is the platform that introduces these mutations in crops using gene editing. The company cultivates soybeans, sorghum, rice, cotton, and alfalfa. It has partnered with Santa Rosa Semillas, Adecoagro, Gensus, GDM, Aceleradora Litoral, Tobin, Rotam, Asociación de Cooperativas Argentinas, Benson Hill, and Plant Science Center. Headquartered in Rosario, Argentina, BioHeuris is privately held with an office in the US.</span></p>

BioHeuris

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    Tropic Biosciences is a privately held developer of high-performing commercial varieties of tropical crops that promote cultivation efficiencies, improve sustainable environmental practices and enhance consumer health through its use of cutting-edge genetic editing technologies. Its GEiGS Technology combines gene editing and RNAi in a single platform that enables critical disease resistance and quality improvement traits. The technology caters to the banana production, row crops, livestock, and poultry industries. The company’s partners include Temasek, Agronomics, Polaris Founders Capital, and Excellence Through Stewardship. Headquartered in the UK, Tropical Biosciences has been featured in The Telegraph, Nature, Fast Company, and the Financial Times. 
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Tropic Biosciences

Companies that develop or use biological, physical and chemical agents and techniques to provide protection and improve the quality of a seed. This includes the sale of seed coating, or seed enhancement products as methods to treat seeds.

Companies that redesign large clusters of genes and gene parts rather than modifying or engineering a single gene for improving the traits of a plant.

Companies that utilize genetic engineering tools and technologies to use existing and naturally present gene variants in a plant and the natural process of breeding such as inbreeding, and linebreeding to develop better traits for plants.

Companies that use transgenesis processes like tissue culturing to develop transgenic plants or seeds by inserting new genes into them from other plants or in certain instances other organisms like bacteria or even animals.

Companies that offer techniques such as epigenetics, RNA interference (RNAi) to temporarily block a specific gene that would trigger unwanted effect such as a disease on a plant.

Companies that develop a platform to insert, edit, or delete the DNA of a plant itself using approaches such as CRISPR-Cas 9, TALENs, and Zinc Fingers. These approaches help develop plant genes or seeds with traits such as disease-resistant, enhanced-performance, or improve yield.

Biotech solutions to produce crops that are sustainable and offer better traits

Offers customization of genes and traits as required by farmers

Uses AI/machine learning to facilitate their platform/biotech processes like gene editing

Plastomics

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