Phytelligence, a US-based agritech developer backed by diversified media company Cowles, is to wind up its operations after losing a legal dispute with Washington State University (WSU), GeekWire reported on Friday.
In a message to shareholders cited by GeekWire, Glen Donald, chief executive of Phytelligence, said the business was effectively insolvent and unable to continue as a going concern.
Founded in 2012, Phytelligence focused on employing a micropropagation-based cultivation technique called Multiphy that involved using nutritious gels to seed agricultural crops that would yield results up to five time as fast as traditional methods.
The company had planned on launching a Multiphy-grown variant of WSU-patented apple breed Cosmic Crisp, but was subsequently rebuked for violating the terms of its licence for the product, with the courts finding in WSU’s favour.
Phytelligence received about $12m in a September 2017 round backed by Cowles, investment vehicle Avrio Capital and WRF Capital, the early-stage arm of commercialisation firm Washington Research Foundation, though a July 2018 filing indicates it eventually raised $16.9m in equity and debt.
The company subsequently obtained $2.5m of a targeted $10m round in October 2018 made up of debt and other securities from unnamed investors, having previously received a total of about $705,000 over five equity rounds between 2012 and 2015.
Steve Rector, chief financial officer at Cowles, said: “It is obviously a big disappointment – not only for the wonderful team of talented employees at Phytelligence adversely impacted by this, but equally disappointing for the farmers who embraced, and need, their technology.”
“The Phytelligence protocol is still the best method out there, and perhaps through this process there will be an effort to continue to find a way to utilise their technology. There is a big market and a big need.”
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.
