Agricultural technology firm Ascribe Bio has secured $12 million in Series A funding to advance its next-generation natural crop protection solutions and support the upcoming global launch of Phytalix®, a broad-spectrum biofungicide designed to deliver practical and sustainable disease control for farmers.
The oversubscribed funding round was co-led by Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst platform, and Acre Venture Partners, with participation from Syngenta Group Ventures, Trailhead Capital, Silver Blue LLC, Cultivation Capital, and The Yield Lab.
The investment marks a major milestone for Ascribe Bio, enabling the company to expand its small-molecule technology platform and accelerate commercialization efforts. Phytalix® is described as a “biofungicide without compromise,” combining the health and sustainability benefits of biological products with the ease and affordability of conventional chemical crop protection.
“Ascribe’s approach to biological solutions provides farmers with smart and sustainable choices for disease control,” said Tom Greene, Senior Director at Corteva and Global Leader of Corteva Catalyst. “This investment reflects our ongoing commitment to advancing next-generation, nature-inspired products for growers worldwide.”
Alex Bondar, Partner at Acre Venture Partners, praised Ascribe’s efficient approach: “The Ascribe team has been strategic and disciplined, advancing Phytalix from the lab to the field and demonstrating dramatic yield gains compared to other biologicals. The strength of this investment syndicate reflects their progress.”
According to Jay Farmer, CEO of Ascribe Bio, the new funding will support manufacturing scale-up and early commercialization, with first regulatory approval expected in Brazil later this year, followed by launches in the U.S. and other international markets.
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Founded in 2017 out of research from the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University, Ascribe Bio develops natural crop protection products that use small molecules from the soil microbiome to provide effective, eco-friendly disease control.
The company’s mission, Farmer said, is to make sustainable farming both attainable and profitable: “This investment accelerates our mission to bring highly effective and sustainable crop protection to farmers worldwide.”