Participated · Series A · Jun 2026

SWARM Engineering builds operational AI that combines domain-trained intelligent agents and optimization algorithms to deliver verified, auditable decisions for supply chain, workforce, and logistics in agrifood and manufacturing. Its platform is built on an operational ontology for these industries, ingests real-time data, preserves institutional knowledge, and runs scenario simulations across thousands of variables in minutes. SWARM says customers compress planning cycles, simulate hundreds of logistics and supply scenarios quickly, and gain cross-functional visibility not provided by legacy planning tools. The company serves leading global brands across the U.S., Latin America, and Europe and has been recognized by AgTech Breakthrough in 2024 and 2025. Leadership includes veterans from Microsoft, Palantir, Google, and UiPath, and the company recently added Jason Trusley of Land O'Lakes to its advisory board. Post-financing plans include expanding use cases, scaling go-to-market efforts, and deepening ERP and supply-chain integrations.

Led · Seed · Jun 2025

New Iridium builds a low-cost, low-carbon bio-ethanol oxidation platform to produce bio-based acetic acid and ethyl acetate as drop-in replacements for fossil-derived chemicals. The company leverages existing first-generation bioethanol infrastructure and domestically sourced feedstock. Its process is designed for scalable, low-carbon operation while maintaining performance and supply reliability. New Iridium plans to accelerate development of its flagship platform and advance construction of an industrial pilot facility with a capacity of 50 metric tons per year (approximately 140 kilograms per day) to validate process scalability. Both target products recently received USDA BioPreferred certification for 100% bio-based content. The company has received prior support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, including an SBIR grant from BETO and ENERGYWERX vouchers. New Iridium develops a photocatalysis platform that uses light rather than heat to produce low‑carbon chemicals and convert CO2 into value‑added products. The company says its technology can sharply reduce carbon emissions through process efficiencies and electrification while lowering production costs versus incumbent processes. It was awarded a $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF) SBIR Phase II grant to accelerate development of the platform. New Iridium is an Innosphere Ventures REACH Client Company based in Fort Collins, CO. The company has formed a strategic partnership with Braskem to advance its CO2 conversion technology and support industry carbon‑neutrality goals. New Iridium has also received recognition as an EPIC pitch finalist at the DOE Small Business Forum & Expo, a Nature Spinoff Prize “One to Watch,” and a Hello Tomorrow Environment track winner.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2024

Founded in 2021 and based in San Francisco, Leaf Agriculture provides a data infrastructure platform that unifies and cleans farmer-owned data from machines, soil labs, weather stations, satellite imagery, and farm management systems. The company positions itself as the connective layer for agriculture, used by crop insurers, ag retailers, seed and chemical companies, compliance and sustainability partners, food processors, and commodity traders. Leaf says its platform enables crop insurers to pay claims in days, helps retailers deliver field-specific seed and chemical outcome models, and saves farmers hundreds of hours of manual data entry. The company processes data covering over 20% of global crop acres annually. Leaf raised a $13M Series B co-led by Leaps by Bayer and industry strategic investors, which it says will help expand its partner network and scale its data services.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2024

Leaf is a New York–based startup that ingests farms' unstructured data, standardizes it, and serves it through an API to customers such as crop insurance providers and agtech companies. The company charges customers based on how many acres their data is harvested from and now works with more than 80 companies, including Bayer and Syngenta. Leaf began selling in mid-2021 after reverse-engineering many farm data file types to build its infrastructure layer. The startup recently raised an $11.3 million Series A and plans to use the capital to build out a commercial go-to-market team and scale sales beyond the CEO. Product plans include improving data quality and accuracy to support customers using the data as inputs for AI prediction models. Leaf is also exploring end-to-end offerings that could replace cloud providers for some customers. Based in Los Angeles, Leaf builds a unified farm-data API that lets developers send and receive user-permissioned agricultural data in a consistent, standardized way. Its API is used across use cases including carbon and sustainability tracking, farm management, lending and insurance, biotech, marketplaces, agronomy, traceability, and maintenance forecasting. Companies representing over 200 million acres are already using Leaf’s platform to build and scale products. Leaf says its product eliminates the need to build and maintain multiple integrations and backend infrastructure, accelerating product development timelines. The company raised $5 million in seed financing and plans to use the capital to grow its commercial, customer success, and development teams globally. Leaf also intends to add support for new data types and launch new services such as Field Operations to expand its offerings. Leaf provides a developer-focused API network that connects apps and services to farm data from equipment, sensors, and software platforms. Developers use Leaf’s API to build and scale products including farm management software, lending products, carbon removal marketplaces, outcome-based financing, input and land marketplaces, traceability applications, and equipment maintenance forecasting. The company says its API supports all major agriculture brands and that hundreds of applications and thousands of end users are built on and using Leaf. Leaf was founded in 2018 with a mission to lower barriers to entry in food and agriculture technology by providing developer-friendly farm data infrastructure. The startup raised a $2 million seed round to enhance its products, grow the team, expand its integration network, and engage international markets. Leaf positions itself as infrastructure to improve farmer profitability, environmental outcomes, and accessibility across the food system.

Led · Equity · Mar 2024

Solasta Bio develops peptide-based, nature-inspired bioinsecticides designed to selectively target insect pests while protecting beneficial pollinators such as bees. Its technology platform can be mobilized for any pest across crop and non-crop applications, including stored grain. The company’s agents demonstrated efficacy on par with or better than commercial standards across more than 20 field trials in Europe, the UK and the US during the 2023 trials season. Co-founded by CEO Shireen Davies and CSO Prof. Julian Dow, Solasta is based in Glasgow, Scotland. The company recently closed a $14M Series A, bringing total capital raised to $19M, and intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its peptide-based bioinsecticides. Forbion’s involvement will also add a board seat as part of the round. SOLASTA Bio develops next‑generation green insecticides based on nature‑inspired peptides that target pests selectively. The company's core products are sustainable peptide insect control solutions intended to replace or augment conventional chemical insecticides. SOLASTA was announced as the winner of the Radicle Natural Plant Protection (NPP) Challenge by UPL, which the company says will help accelerate its solutions toward the global market. As part of the prize, SOLASTA will gain industry support and access to UPL Corp and Radicle Growth's networks and expertise to help commercial development. The company was selected from a pool of 237 start‑up applicants, highlighting external validation of its technology. No revenue, user, or founding‑year metrics were disclosed in the announcement. Solasta Bio has developed a technology platform for creating neuropeptide-based insect control products that are nature-inspired rather than selected from a synthetic chemistry library. Its products target insect pests while preserving beneficial pollinators such as bees, and the platform can be mobilised for any pest of interest. The company plans to use the funds to scale up UK and US operations, expand its technical and commercial teams (creating 25 jobs), accelerate development of its technology platform and target new markets. Solasta is led by CEO Shireen Davies, PhD, with CSO Professor Julian Dow and former BASF executive Dr Paul Bernasconi among the team; other executives include Chair Dr Rob Wylie, CFO David Armour and CCO Dr Daphne Preuss. The company currently employs a team of 25 R&D, commercial staff and consultants. The fundraising round brings the company's total funding to £5.5M. Solasta Bio develops biopesticides using a technology platform that creates neuropeptide-based insect control products inspired by nature rather than synthetic-chemistry libraries. Its products are designed to target insect pests while preserving beneficial pollinators such as bees. The company was established in May 2020 following four years of research funded by UKRI BBSRC and the EC, with commercialisation support from Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Spinout Programme. Management includes co-founders Professor Shireen Davies (CEO), Professor Julian Dow (CSO), Paul Bernasconi (CTO) and Professor Robert Liskamp, supported by a Glasgow-based R&D team. Financially, Solasta secured £1.3m in seed funding and had earlier pre-seed backing from UKI2S and Scottish Enterprise. The company plans to move trials out of the laboratory into real-world settings and aims to bring its first biopesticides to market in 2027, roughly half the development time of traditional synthetic products.