Harnessing the power of micropeptides to deliver agri-food system change

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

We first came across Micropep a year and a half ago during an event in London. A conversation with two historical investors brought our attention to the technology, the opportunity for food-system change, and the investment potential of the company.

Today’s crop protection market is reliant on two main technologies: conventional pesticides (or agro-chemicals) and microbe-based biologicals.

Conventional pesticides typically have strong efficacy levels, but similar to antibiotics, face resistance problems, as well as growing concerns regarding environmental toxicity. Conversely, biological protectants feel very much like the way forward.

We spent a long time researching small peptides, which represent important regulators of plant growth and development. Over the past 20 years, many small peptides have been identified thanks to technical advances in genome sequencing, bioinformatics and chemical biology, but not specifically those with a real-life, timely application within the agrifood space. This is where Micropep has an edge and really caught our attention.

The company appealed to us on multiple levels – the nature of their previous investors, the commercial pipeline and testing maturity, but most importantly, its deep-tech approach with a platform that leverages the power of bio-engineering to manufacture micropeptides at scale with a 100x improvement in cost compared to chemical synthesis. This technology has the potential to bring to the market multiple chemical pesticide alternatives via bio-fungicides, bio-herbicides and bio-insecticides. 

Through our investment, we look forward to supporting Micropep’s growth, especially in the EU market, and showcasing biologicals as the future of agriculture.

Within the Regenerative Growth I portfolio, Micropep forms part of the core agri-food tech strategy and embodies our two key objectives: delivering a strong positive environmental impact while generating attractive financial returns.

Micropep’s ability to bring multiple corporate investors around the deal table highlights the maturity of the company, its ability to scale at speed and to deliver. Ultimately, a successful technology in the agritech space is one that has a proven real-life application with clear adoption from the biggest actors. Here, we believe Micropep leads the way.