Benson Hill Biosystems receives $25 million to advance seed trait prediction

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In Missouri, Benson Hill Biosystems closed a $25 million Series B investment round to further advance CropOS and to develop a portfolio of promising product candidates to increase crop yield without requiring additional inputs. CropOS is a cognitive engine that uses machine learning to continuously advance, thus enabling researchers to better predict which seeds will produce a desired trait.

“With this round of financing, our investor base is joined by a capable and strategically minded group of organizations that recognize the immense challenges and opportunities facing the food and agricultural industry,” said Matthew Crisp, CEO and co-founder of Benson Hill Biosystems.

The platform outputs can be deployed in crop plants by using a spectrum of approaches and tools, from breeding to genome editing to transgenics.  Benson Hill’s first application of CropOS successfully identified traits to increase crop yields by improving photosynthesis, one of the most fundamental and complex plant systems.