The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Oct 2021

Pluton Biosciences isolates and develops novel microorganisms to create agricultural products that improve soil and capture carbon. Their lead product is a microbial cover crop designed to sequester carbon and nitrogen in soils. The company reports highly repeatable lab and greenhouse data and plans field testing this year to quantify sequestration and soil impacts. R&D continues on microbes that generate durable carbon for long-term soil persistence and on a discovered molecule that acts as an insecticide against fall armyworm. Pluton raised a $16.5M Series A to commercialize its most promising finds after a $6.6M seed round in 2021. The company has doubled headcount from 8 to 17, doubled office and lab space, and expects to double staff again over the next year. Pluton Biosciences has developed a platform it calls a "Micromining engine" to create and screen small populations of microbes that are otherwise unculturable, then isolate and sequence the organisms or genes responsible for desired phenotypes. The company says its approach lets it access and grow the roughly 99.999% of microbes not currently culturable. Early demonstrations include microbes that kill mosquitoes and microbe groupings predicted to sequester carbon in soil. Pluton is working with Bayer AG on a microbe-based soil additive the company predicts could remove nearly two tons of carbon per acre per year while replenishing soil nutrients. The team plans to commercialize the mosquito-derived natural pesticide and expand beyond initial sampling sources. Pluton raised a $6.6 million seed round to scale operations, move part-time staff to full-time and build out its lab.