Benson Hill raises funding to enhance food and ingredients

US-based crop improvement company Benson Hill Biosystems has raised $60m in a series C financing round as part of its efforts to improve food and ingredients.

Led by GV, the financing round saw the participation of new investors Activant Capital and Tao Capital Partners.

Existing investors, including Alexandria Venture Investments, Fall Line Capital, iSelect Fund, Lewis and Clark Ventures, Mercury Fund, Prelude Ventures, and S2G Ventures were also part of the series C financing round.

GV general partner Andy Wheeler said: “With its data-driven approach to crop improvement, Benson Hill has significant potential to impact the next wave of productivity gains across food and agriculture.

“The broad applicability of Benson Hill’s technology platform, combined with the executive team’s expertise in photosynthesis and genomic selection, creates new opportunities for farmers and the food production industry at large.”

Benson Hill has been providing advanced tools in seed innovation tools across the agri-food value chain.

The company’s CropOS computational platform and suite of breeding and genome editing tools are claimed to have been designed to improve plants sustainability, nutrition and flavour profiles with greater speed and precision.

The funding will be used by the company to further advance its CropOS platform and enhance its product development capabilities to deliver a portfolio of improved crops.

S2G Ventures managing director Sanjeev Krishnan said: “Consumer demand for healthier and more sustainable food choices creates opportunity across many crops and ingredients, and plant genomics is a proven lever that has been severely underutilised in most crops.

“Benson Hill delivers the full suite of solutions a company needs to create differentiated products and capture this growing market, whether they are a seed company, food manufacturer or food retailer.”