Boost Biomes announces close of Series A and co-development agreement with lead investor, Yara International, for biostimulants products

US-based food and agriculture biotech startup Boost Biomes and global crop nutrition company, Yara International ASA, announced today the close of Boost's USD 5 million series A equity round as well as a joint development agreement between the two companies. Yara's investment amounts to USD 3 million. Existing investors, including Viking Global Investors and Y Combinator, participated in the close. With this partnership in place, Boost and Yara will expand current efforts to co-develop a new product to enhance crops' rate of nutrient uptake from the soil enabling farmers to increase yields with fewer inputs, saving cost and reducing environmental impact. Boost will use the new funding to continue to develop its leading biofungicide product, and will further develop its product pipeline and technology platform, including products that may include novel antibiologicals, improve nutrient utilization, improve other measures of crop growth and health, and products that extend the shelf-life of produce. Jamie Bacher, Boost Biomes' CEO and cofounder, said, "We are putting Boost's platform technology to work.  Yara's evaluation of our technology, and our resulting joint program, further validates that our platform generates a unique data set that can be exploited for many diverse microbiome applications in food and agriculture.  While Boost develops products internally, we are also ready to work with partners on novel microbiome applications.  We look forward to working closely with the team at Yara to develop novel products for farmers, to address their most pressing challenges." "We are excited to collaborate with, and invest in, Boost Biomes as part of Yara's focus on innovative microbial approaches within our crop nutrition solutions. A key priority for farmers is efficient and effective use of fertilizers. Boost's technology has the promise to unlock new means to enhance crops' nutrient uptake. This partnership underlines Yara's commitment to further developing our biostimulants product range under the BIOTRYG platform as part of our strategy to promote sustainable farming practices," said Joacim Christiansen, SVP, Yara Farming Solutions.