University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and pharmaceutical firm Bayer have teamed up to start the Crop Science CoLaborator incubator for agriculture and food-tech related businesses.
The incubator will span 3,000 square feet at Bayer’s Innovation Hub for Crop Science in West Sacramento, with enough adaptable floor space for eight to 10 researchers and essential equipment for agtech operations.
Local public-private partnership Greater Sacramento Economic Council will reportedly help identify agtech startups suited to the incubator.
Bayer will join UC Davis’ incubator network, Distributed Research Incubation and Venture Engine, which is managed by the university’s Venture Catalyst commercialisation arm. The UC Davis space joins two other CoLaborator facilities – with one situated at Bayer’s R&D facility in Berlin and another at a hub in San Francisco that is underpinned by Bayer’s long-term agreement with UC San Francisco.
Dushyant Pathak, associate vice-chancellor of research at UC Davis and executive director of Venture Catalyst, said: “Working with Bayer provides our campus entrepreneurs with another tremendous resource and further strengthens the growing regional innovation ecosystem.
“The value of this effort extends much further than addressing the need for appropriate facilities, it creates an opportunity for entrepreneurs to engage with other experts in and outside their field and build relationships critical for their success.”
– This article first appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.