Agriculture-related gene editing startups have raised over $2.7 billion since 2012, and while the segment has suffered from the recent venture capital downturn, there are signs of a potential recovery in 2024.
In the first half of this year, agriculture gene editing startups raised just over $161 million across six deals, a considerable improvement over the same period in 2023 when they raised around $46 million.
While $40 million of the H1 2024 went to a single deal, even after removing that figure startups raised 206% more in the first half year-over-year.
Deal activity is also rising, with H1 2024 seeing as many deals as recorded for all of 2023. H1 2024 numbers are also higher than H1 2022 by 140%, though time will tell if 2024 will beat the $241 million raised in FY 2022.
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Taking a closer look at deal activity in 2024, the three largest rounds of H1 were secured by American companies. In January, Inari raised $103 million in a late-stage round, while Ohalo Genetics secured around $40 million with a series A deal; BioConsortia raised $ 15 million in a late round in April, while Israeli GeneNeer was fourth with a $ 1 million seed deal raised in January.
In 2023 all the top four deals took place in H1, when Elo Life Systems raised $24.5 million and Inscripta raised a $4,4 million late round. The two US-based companies were followed by a seed deal for Brazilian startup Symbiomics ($2.15 million) and another seed round for Chinese Sanmi Biotechnology ($1.4 million).
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