San Carlos (California) based biotechnology company, Switch Bioworks, has raised $17M in seed funding. The funds will support the development of affordable and sustainable fertilizers aimed at transforming agricultural practices and reducing environmental impact on a global scale.
The round was led by Change Forces Capital the new spin-out climate fund from King Philanthropies and supported by Grantham Foundation, Astanor Ventures, Acre Venture Partners, Anthos Capital, Thia Ventures, Emerson Collective, as well as the farmer-led Ag Ventures Alliance and others.
Nitrogen fertilizer is an essential crop nutrient and can support the food supply of half of the world’s population. However its current manufacturing is largely based on fossil fuels, generating over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions and causing environmental damage such as fertilizer run-off and eutrophication. Switch Bioworks aims to tackle these global challenges by developing symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing microbes that reside on plant roots, providing a sustainable and carbon-neutral alternative to conventional fertilizers.
“Many people are unaware that their food is produced using fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. To achieve our goal of de-carbonizing the economy, we must find new ways to provide nutrients in crops. The team of biotechnology experts at Switch have assembled from around the world to develop an innovative approach that dramatically improves the performance and cost-effectiveness of bio-fertilizers, tackling the climate challenge.”
The first product Switch Bioworks is developing will be a consortium of diverse symbiotic microbes, where each member is engineered to release nitrogen fertilizer under precise genetic control. The product when applied at planting using current farming practices, will be more cost-effective than conventional fertilizers, allowing farmers to reduce their bottom line – fertilizer, one of their largest operating expenses.
“Scientists have been working for 50 years to create nitrogen fertilizers using biological methods. The major hurdle has been that engineered microbes, designed to produce fertilizer, become too energy-intensive to compete with native microbes in the soil and on plant roots. As a result, these microbes are quickly out-competed and fail to deliver sufficient fertilizer over the crop growing season. At Switch, we are introducing a ‘switchable’ engineering approach that enables microbes to first compete and establish themselves on plant roots before switching on fertilizer production.”
The technology used by the company is built on a modular platform that not only addresses nitrogen but also holds potential for improving a range of precision-engineered biological products. The company is actively forging R&D and product development collaborations across the global agriculture and biotech sectors.
The ten hottest years on record have all been in the last ten years, highlighting the urgent need to de-carbonize the global economy. With the addition of a pre-Seed round raised in 2022 and grants from organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Switch Bioworks has now secured over $25M in support of its mission of feeding the world sustainably. The latest financing will be used to complete product development of the company’s first carbon-neutral biological nitrogen fertilizer, including initial scale-up fermentation and formulation, and greenhouse and field trials in the U.S. and internationally.
