Resurrect Bio, a biotechnology company revolutionising agriculture by equipping crops with genetic defences against disease, which is a spin-out from The Sainsbury Laboratory at Norwich Research Park, has announced the successful initial closing of its Series A funding round of $8.1m.
The investment was led by Corteva through its Corteva Catalyst platform, with participation from Calculus Capital, Pymwymic, UKI2S, SynBioVen, and AgFunder. The completion of this Series A round represents a significant milestone for Resurrect Bio, reflecting growing industry recognition of the urgent need for sustainable crop protection solutions.
Resurrect Bio operates from both London and Norwich Research Park. The funds will enable it to grow its team so that it can accelerate its high-throughput trait discovery platform and progress its multiple disease resistance products toward commercial partnerships, bringing solutions to farmers significantly faster than conventional breeding methods.
Resurrect Bio’s proprietary platform combines cutting-edge FloraFold® AI computational biology and high-throughput screening of plants to identify and resurrect disease resistance genes that have been suppressed by pathogens. The resurrection process involves making small changes to the native plant genes using gene editing, restoring the crop’s ability to defend itself against pathogens. This approach is poised to offer farmers a way to protect their crop yields against the plant diseases that threaten global food security.
Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst platform, collaborates with entrepreneurs and innovators to accelerate the development of early-stage, disruptive technologies that enable farmers to sustainably produce more food and feed
Dr. Cian Duggan, CEO of Resurrect Bio, “We’re thrilled to have secured this investment from such a distinguished group of partners who share our vision of delivering durable disease resistance to farmers. With Corteva’s leadership and the support of Calculus Capital, Pymwymic and our existing investors, we’re now positioned to scale our platform and deliver multiple resistance traits to the seed industry.”
Roz Bird, CEO, Anglia Innovation Partnership, said, “This is great news for Resurrect Bio and a really good indicator that Norwich Research Park is being recognised as a hotbed for innovation that is attracting serious investors. Companies based on our campus have already passed the £100m milestone in funds they have attracted and we can expect more investments of this type as new companies emerge from our incubator programme and from our soon-to-be-launched accelerator programme. Investors both nationally and internationally are beginning to acknowledge that Norwich is a very opportunistic place for them to invest which is good news for companies based here as it is for the future Norfolk economy.”
