Pluton Biosciences, a startup working to discover microbes to fight climate change, has announced the close of a $16.5 M Series A funding round co-led by Illumina Ventures and RA Capital.
“The funding will accelerate the development of Pluton’s flagship product, the Microbial Cover Crop™, through field trials and towards commercial partnerships,” remarked Elizabeth Gallegos, CEO of Pluton. “It will also enable us to expand our team, advance a microbial-derived pesticide to combat the fall armyworm, and harness the full potential of our Micromining™ platform to swiftly identify tailored solutions for agriculture.”
Illumina Ventures’ Charles Lin, PhD, who has joined Pluton’s Board of Directors, expressed his excitement about the fund’s first AgBio investment, “In the past two decades, we have witnessed how genomics revolutionized the landscape of human diagnostics and therapeutics. We expect genomics to also enable breakthroughs in agriculture. Pluton’s Micromining™ approach, combining genomics with rigorous data science, can unlock the potential of soil microbes for more sustainable agriculture and beyond.”
RA Capital’s Michael Gillespie, MD, has also joined Pluton’s Board of Directors, along with agricultural industry veterans Jerry Steiner and Neal Gutterson, Ph.D.