Robigo, a biotechnology company developing crop protection products using engineered microbes, RNA interference (RNAi) and CRISPR technologies, has raised an undisclosed Series A funding round led by Leaps by Bayer.

The round also included participation from Illumina Ventures, SVG Thrive, Congruent Ventures and Endeavor8.

The company plans to use the funding to accelerate the commercial launch of microbial biopesticides targeting fungal diseases in soybeans and specialty crops in the United States, while expanding its pipeline to tackle additional soil-borne pathogens across broadacre agriculture, a market it estimates is worth $10bn.

‘Building an engine, not just a single product’

According to Leaps by Bayer, Robigo’s appeal lies in the scalability of its underlying technology platform rather than any individual product.

“The scalability of the ARGO platform is what sets Robigo apart,” said Dr Juergen Eckhardt, executive vice-president and head of Leaps by Bayer.

“They are not just developing a single product but rather building an engine that can rapidly address diverse soil-borne pathogens across broadacre crops.”

Robigo’s ARGO platform uses synthetic biology and computational design to engineer living microbes capable of delivering targeted crop protection. The company’s technology is designed to silence essential genes in plant pathogens through novel modes of action, while reducing development timelines from the industry norm of three to five years to less than 20 months.

Eckhardt said the ability to deploy the platform across multiple crops, pathogens and future product concepts was a key reason behind Bayer’s investment.

“The reason we describe ARGO as a platform is that the underlying technology is designed to be applicable across multiple pathogens, crops and product concepts rather than a single use case,” he told AgNavigator.

Tackling biologicals’ long-standing challenges

Biological crop protection products have long been promoted as a more sustainable alternative to conventional chemistries, but many have struggled with efficacy, consistency and cost.

Eckhardt said Robigo’s approach stood out because it addresses those issues through engineering rather than relying solely on naturally occurring organisms.

“While it is still early, the company has generated field and development data suggesting its platform can deliver the efficacy growers expect, while leveraging engineered microbes to address the cost and stability limitations that have challenged many biological and RNA-based approaches,” he said.

“What impressed us is that Robigo is tackling performance, consistency and scalability as an engineering and manufacturing challenge, not simply a product discovery challenge.”

Robigo’s products are designed as a one-time application, with engineered microbes continuing to produce active ingredients throughout the growing season without requiring changes to existing farm practices.

Addressing costly crop diseases

The company is initially targeting diseases that carry significant economic costs for growers.

Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) in soybeans is estimated to cost US farmers between $200m and $500m annually, while fusarium wilt is a major challenge for lettuce and berry producers.

Founder and chief executive Dr Andee Wallace said growers should not have to choose between effectiveness and sustainability.

“At Robigo, we believe in building on nature’s foundation to engineer biological products that match or exceed the performance of today’s chemistries,” she said.

“Growers shouldn’t have to choose between a product that works and one that’s affordable or sustainable.”

Multiple routes to commercialisation

While Robigo is developing its own crop protection products, Bayer sees future value in both product sales and partnerships.

“One of the attractive aspects of the company is that it has the potential to create value through both proprietary products and strategic partnerships,” Eckhardt said.

“We view those paths as complementary rather than mutually exclusive and expect the company to remain flexible as markets and opportunities develop.”

That flexibility could make Robigo an attractive partner for larger agricultural companies seeking access to synthetic biology-enabled crop protection technologies without developing them in-house.

Engineering meets biologicals

Robigo’s approach also highlights a growing merging between biological crop protection and synthetic biology.

Although the company’s products rely on genetically engineered microorganisms, Eckhardt said Bayer still views them as biologicals because the active agents are living microbes.

“We think ‘biologicals’ remains an appropriate description because the products themselves are living microbes used for crop protection,” he said.

“The innovation is that Robigo is bringing the precision and design capabilities of synthetic biology to a category that has historically relied largely on discovery from nature, which we believe has the potential to improve consistency and performance.”