Hudson River Biotechnology is an agricultural biotech based in Wageningen that develops new crops for the seed breeding industry using CRISPR technology. It makes molecular-level adjustments to the genetic code to modify plant properties such as yield, nutritional content, and shelf life. The company plans to scale up commercially and develop new products and services with the recent investment. CEO Ferdinand Los highlighted Europe’s regulatory easing for new genetic techniques and described CRISPR as a mature technology for supplying plants in a safe and controlled manner. Hudson River Biotechnology employs 30 people and maintains strong ties with StartLife, Wageningen UR, Radboud University, and the University of Twente. The funding and strategic partnership are intended to support further technology development and international expansion. Hudson River Biotechnology (HRB) is an agricultural biotech focused on CRISPR-based, non-transgenic genome editing in plants and a nanotech delivery platform for in-field applications. The startup uses a delivery technology that can bypass plant cell walls to introduce CRISPR enzymes and is developing the same nanoparticle system to encapsulate agrochemicals or biological agents to improve bioavailability and reduce input volumes. HRB’s editing work has been applied to row crops, greenhouse varieties, ornamentals (including cut flowers and pot plants), and algae for potential pharmaceutical or biological compound production. Customers include plant-breeding and seed companies, family-owned ornamental businesses, and increasingly larger agribusiness corporates, primarily in Europe and North America with growing interest from Asia and South America. The company describes a tailored, non-standardized revenue model—royalties or licenses depending on the partner and market segment. Founded in 2015 after an EU grant and following a 2018 seed round, HRB plans to use its Series A capital to scale its crop-breeding business and further develop and commercialize the nanotech delivery offering. Hudson River Biotechnology (HRB) is an agricultural biotech company that applies CRISPR and an exclusively licensed SuRE target-identification platform to develop new plant traits. Its R&D pipeline focuses on traits for plants that produce high-value compounds used in the pharma, cosmetics and food industries. HRB also offers end-to-end molecular breeding and target-identification services to plant breeders, seed companies and natural-ingredient producers. The company emphasizes targeted modulation of gene expression (using SuRE and CRISPR) to alter gene ‘volume’ rather than knockout approaches, aiming to avoid damaging effects and reduce reliance on transgenic methods. HRB says the technologies integrate easily into existing breeding programs and shorten development time and costs. Founded in 2015 and based in Wageningen, the company positions itself as an independent player targeting the multi billion-euro agtech market. With the new investment, HRB plans to grow its team, expand R&D activities and accelerate commercial and technical development to become a world-class agtech innovation factory.

Total raised

$6M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Aug 2021