Bindwell has secured a $6 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and A Capital, marking one of the most notable early financings in agricultural technology this year as the company works to reinvent how pesticides are discovered. The round also included participation from SV Angel and Paul Graham, following an earlier pre-seed investment from Character Capital and Bindwell’s acceptance into Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch.
The San Francisco-based startup is developing an AI-powered discovery engine aimed at addressing a persistent global agricultural challenge. Farmers continue to lose between 20% and 40% of their crops to pests, a loss rate that has remained unchanged for thirty years, despite a doubling of pesticide usage per acre during the same period. Resistance has accelerated, research productivity has slowed, and fewer than twenty new active ingredients have been approved over the past decade. R&D costs have also surged from $30 million to $300 million per product.
Bindwell applies modern AI techniques in drug discovery to pesticide development, positioning itself as the first company focused exclusively on AI-enabled pesticide discovery. Its models can evaluate billions of molecules and generate predictions in seconds that typically require days of laboratory testing. According to the company, these gains have allowed it to build a platform that operates four times faster than DeepMind’s AlphaFold while maintaining high scientific rigor through uncertainty quantification that signals when predictions can be trusted.
The new capital will support the development of Bindwell’s first proprietary pesticide, the expansion of its AI and biochemistry teams, and the scaling of laboratory operations at its San Carlos research facility. The company offers full molecule development rather than software sales, generating revenue through licensing agreements with agrochemical partners. It is currently in discussions with several major global companies and expects to sign its first deal soon.
Bindwell’s founders, Tyler Rose and Navvye Anand, began collaborating in 2023 after meeting at the Wolfram Summer Research Program. Their early work on binding affinity prediction later contributed to a Nature Scientific Reports paper focused on cancer drug discovery. The vision for Bindwell grew from their own experiences in agricultural regions abroad, where both witnessed the impact of pesticide overuse without meaningful improvements in crop protection.
The company has also built a suite of proprietary AI systems, including Foldwell, a four times faster AlphaFold replacement; PLAPT, a tool capable of scanning every known synthesized compound within six hours; APPT, a protein interaction model with performance improvements of one point seven times over existing solutions; and an uncertainty quantification system that guides when additional data is required.
Bindwell is now hiring AI researchers and biochemists as it scales its platform and prepares to bring safer, more targeted pesticides to market.
KEY QUOTES
“AI is revolutionizing drug discovery. Pesticide discovery is overdue for the same transformation. The agrochemical industry is stagnant, and it’s time for a change. Our mission is to develop safer, more targeted pesticides that are great at killing pests and nothing else.”
Tyler Rose, Co-Founder
“The founders (of Bindwell) will probably do alright. They’re smart and have a good idea.”
Paul Graham, Investor
“Growing up in India, I saw how pesticide overuse was damaging the environment without addressing the root issue. Since then, increased pesticide use still has done nothing to reduce crop losses to pests. We created Bindwell to bring pesticide development into the modern age. This will benefit farmers around the world — and the planet.”
Navvye Anand, Co-Founder
“Bindwell’s use of AI to modernize pesticide discovery reflects our belief that technology can drive meaningful change across foundational industries like agriculture, improving productivity while reducing environmental harm. Tyler and Navvye combine scientific rigor with a deep, authentic understanding of the agricultural challenges they’re tackling.”
Neeraj Arora, Managing Director, General Catalyst
