Searching for the latest in agricultural innovation, Bayer has formed strategic innovation partnerships with two leading venture capital firms in the past year.
“Bayer is 150 years old and has a long and rich history of product development for agricultural uses,” said Geoff Kneen, Bayer R&D Licensing and New Ventures Manager for North America. “But we recognize there are technology developments outside the company which have the potential to revolutionize the way agriculture is conducted.”
To seek out those new developments, Bayer entered into partnerships with Finistere Ventures of San Diego and Flagship Ventures of Boston. “What we’re doing is investing in their funds and using their network of technology access to make investments in the technologies we believe that will be the future of the ag business,” Kneen said. “As the interest in agriculture rapidly expands to include different areas of innovation, such as genomics, IT/data management, and remote sensing, we want a window into that new innovation.”
Learn more in this interview with Geoff from the Bayer AgVocacy Forum: Interview with Geoff Kneen, Bayer