Decibel Bio, a plant biotechnology company building the first crop epigenetic platform, announced it recently emerged from stealth with the announcement of an oversubscribed $12 million financing round from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Future Ventures, and industry leaders Bayer and Syngenta.
This funding round will advance Decibel’s proprietary platform for reading and writing the plant epigenome to create crop varieties with higher yield, efficiency, and resilience to a changing environment.
Through Decibel’s epigenetic reprogramming platform, farmers could apply a treatment that boosts the genes that protect the plant’s photosynthetic machinery from extreme heat, keeping it productive instead of shutting down under stress. And this same approach works for drought, excess rainfall, and yield enhancement. When water is scarce, a farmer could trigger drought-response genes to help crops conserve moisture.
Before an expected storm, crops could be adjusted for stronger stalks to resist lodging. And when conditions are ideal, a farmer could fine-tune growth traits for higher yield. And with Decibel’s platform, all of this can be done without introducing new genetic material, which preserves genetic diversity and allows for fine-tuning gene expression without making irreversible changes.
Decibel’s founding team is experts in synthetic biology, epigenomics, plant physiology, and engineering. The team conceived and developed Decibel’s platform at Sound Agriculture, a leader in climate-friendly agriculture. The company plans to use the capital to expand partnerships across the platform and fast-track product development.
KEY QUOTES:
“Epigenetics is the software of the plant, controlling when and where genes are expressed. Reprogramming the epigenome is a new frontier beyond genomics and gene editing, and opens a new world of possibilities for crop improvement. In practical terms, we can give the plant new instructions – such as enhanced yield or drought tolerance – during the growing season. Growers could now have the ability to upgrade crop performance and download traits in real time to adapt to the specific weather conditions that occur during each growing season.”
– Travis Bayer, CEO and founder of Decibel Bio
“From sudden droughts to extreme heat waves, farmers continue to face a growing number of unpredictable and urgent environmental challenges that impact their crop yields and ultimately, their livelihoods. CRISPR and conventional crop breeding advancements simply cannot keep up with the pace of increasingly challenging growing conditions and Decibel provides a new tool to build more stable, adaptable food systems.”
– Carmichael Roberts, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
“Decoupling plant traits from the physical seed creates a massive new opportunity. Decibel’s tech will let us upgrade crops in the field, something that has not been possible before.”
– Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of Future Ventures
