AgroSpheres: breaking the mould on pesticide use

As told by Lionel Artusio-Payot and Fabio Sofia, co-founders of Zebra Impact Ventures.

AGS tackles the key limitation of the environmentally friendly crop protection industry – bio-products are generally seen as safer, but less effective, than their synthetic counterparts. When harvest volumes represent the bottom line for both feeding the world and turning a profit, growers have to-date been hesitant to adopt them.

AGS addresses this challenge with a novel biomanufacturing and highly targeted biopesticide delivery system, that has the potential to reduce pesticide use and avoid the damage to biodiversity that often happens with conventional synthetic products. Put simply, it has the potential to target ‘bad bugs’ without wiping out the beneficial ones, like bees and butterflies.

The company’s founders, Payam Pourtaheri and Ameer Shakeel, share a deep passion for transforming agriculture. With non-traditional backgrounds in biomedical engineering, they bring a fresh perspective to the industry, allowing them to pioneer meaningful advancements. Their concern over the harmful effects of pesticides, particularly in areas with inadequate protective measures, inspired the company’s creation.

After spending time with the AGS team at their US base and completing our due diligence process, the founders’ talents and drive were clear to us. We believe their breakthrough technology provides the missing link in delivering reliable field performance and opening up new markets for high-performance biopesticides. We see it as one of the most important innovations in crop protection products in the last four decades.

The company will form part of our ag-biotechnology exposure within our broader ‘Precision Farming’ portfolio theme, which supports Agriculture 4.0 and the use of technologies, from drones to AI, to improve resource efficiency, productivity and carbon sequestration while reducing pesticide use.  

The crop protection market is a key focus for the strategy and presents a leading opportunity in the shift towards more sustainable global food systems. Each investment we make within the sector needs to be synergetic and we believe AGS’ technology, which allows for manufacturing, encapsulation and delivery of that biological pesticide all in one platform, is relevant for the other investments we have made within the theme, such as Micropep, as well as potential future ventures.

We believe AGS represents a true game-changer for the entire biological industry, thanks to both its potential environmental impact and its strong potential to break the glass ceiling in terms of exit/valuation in the coming years, with multiple exit opportunities such as private equity deals, IPO and M&A. We look forward to supporting AGS with impact and regulatory guidance on the EU market and developing its presence within specific sub-industries such as grape farming.