Rec Biotechnology
Rec Biotechnology

Vestaron, a US biotech company that uses peptides to develop natural alternatives to chemical-based crop treatments, has raised US $82 million in its Series C fundraising round on 16th May 2022.

logo of the company

The transaction was co-led by private equity company Ordway Selections and Cavallo Ventures, the venture capital arm of agriculture giant Wilbur-Ellis.

Argonautic Ventures, Endeavor8, and Fortistar were among the other new investors.

Existing Vestaron investors iSelect, Northpond Ventures, Novo Holdings, Sygnenta Group Ventures, and CGC Ventures – Continental Grain’s venture capital arm — also took part in the round.

Spear, the company’s main product, is a peptide-based insecticide that may be used to control a variety of pest species. It can be added to the tank mix and applied to the plants as traditional chemicals.

What the founder has to say:

CEO Anna Rath:

“These chemicals are progressively being outlawed or restricted in their use. Many of the remaining chemistries have been in use for so long that they have developed significant resistance, and greater regulatory scrutiny has hindered the launch of new products.

Our greatest challenge is the 30-plus-year history of most biologics failing to perform and traditional chemicals in crop protection. Growers are skeptical that solutions combine the efficacy of conventional chemistries with the safety and environmental profile of a biologic.

The only way to get around this was to create a field data package and enroll in demonstration trials. The good news is that as growers and the channel understand what peptides may do, launching novel peptides should become more accessible.”

How does this work?

Vestaron logo

Optimization is the process of changing the amino acid sequence of a peptide to increase parameters like manufacturing yield, stability, potency, and the number of insects and other pests it can kill.

According to Rath, manufacturing entails both the optimization of their proprietary yeast strain for the manufacture of each peptide and the optimization of the fermentation process itself.

Peptides are larger molecules than typical chemistries, and they do not pass through the insect as well on their own. As a result, they have learned to link them with gut disruptors, which effectively produce ulcers in the insect gut, allowing their peptides to reach their target receptors.

Like numerous other insecticides, Spear targets the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor of insects. Spear, unlike the widely used but potentially dangerous neonicotinoids and Spinosad, a bio-based control, targets a separate, more extensive binding site, overcoming the problem of cross-resistance with both.

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Kshitij does business research and content writing for VCBay. Pursuing BBA from Symbiosis Center Of Management Studies (SCMS) Pune, he is skilled in Financial Modeling, Stock valuation and Microsoft Excel. He is passionate about Entrepreneurship and Finance.

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