Agrivida, a US-based agricultural and industrial processing company backed by agribusiness Syngenta, has closed a $23m series D round led by venture capital firm Cultivian Sandbox Ventures
The round also included Arch Venture Partners, Middleland Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), DAG Ventures, Bright Capital Partners, Gentry Venture Partners, Northgate Capital, Prairie Gold, Sontage Family Fund, an unnamed affiliate of chicken and pork producer Maschhoff Family Foods, and a range of angel investors.
Agrivida closed the round’s $12m first tranche in January 2015 from all of above the investors apart from Arch.
The company has developed technology that produces enzymes with applications in animal nutrition and health, as well as in energy and consumer industries, such as biofuel. The series D round will support the development and commercialisation of those enzymes.
Agrivida secured $15m in a 2012 series C round featuring Syngenta Ventures, the corporate venturing division of Syngenta, and Presidio Ventures, a corporate venturing subsidiary of conglomerate Sumitomo.
Bright Capital led the series C round, which included KPCB, Dag, Prairie Gold, Gentry, Northgate, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities also contributed funds.
Presidio, DAG, Northgate, Prairie Gold, KPCB and IncTank had already provided an undisclosed sum in series B funding in 2009, after Agrivida raised $600,000 in a 2006 series A round. Syngenta first acquired a stake in Agrivida in 2010 when the agribusiness licensed some of its technology to Agrivida.