Toronto-based AgTech startup Molagri has emerged from Y Combinator with investor backing to hire more scientists.
The news: Molagri, which is developing easily updatable pesticides to “evolve” alongside pest resistance, announced this week that it has raised a total of $5.2 million USD ($8.2 million CAD) in seed funding. The funding comes in addition to the roughly $600,000 USD it raised before joining San Francisco-based accelerator Y Combinator, which it graduated from last month.
The seed round was led by Convective Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Superorganism, Robinhood Ventures, and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, alongside other angels.
Molagri co-founder and CEO Zaky Hassan told BetaKit in a phone call that the funding will help double its team of four and perform field trials.
From the source: “I’m just thinking of hitting our milestones and building a product that works and makes life better for farmers and consumers,” Hassan said when asked about the round. “We’re focused on building, so I feel like we have to maybe step back once in a while and smell the roses, but right now we’re just nonstop.”
The context: Molagri was founded by Hassan and Min Jin, two PhD candidates from the University of Toronto who specialize in common cold coronaviruses and were both interested in recent AI-driven advancements in protein design. The startup is synthesizing pesticides on top of a non-infectious insect virus that they can engineer to “whitelist” and “blacklist” targeted proteins, and easily tweak its formulation to stay ahead of anticipated pest resistance.
Hassan previously told BetaKit that Molagri is developing pesticides for tree nuts and tree fruits because they have an acute insecticide need.
Final thought: Hassan reaffirmed that Molagri has secured lab space in Toronto and plans to keep growing the company in the city, which he told BetaKit in August is a “crazy place for talent.” In a LinkedIn post, Hassan said the company is looking for scientists with experience in synthetic virology, insect biology, molecular display and binder discovery, and yeast expression and virus-like particle production.
Feature image courtesy Molagri.
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