UPL Corporation Ltd. (UPL Corp), a global provider of
holistic and sustainable agricultural solutions, and Radicle Growth, a company-building platform investing
in early-stage agriculture and food technologies, today announces the finalists
of "The Radicle Natural Plant Protection (NPP) Challenge by UPL". The
Challenge sets out to invest US $1.75M in start-up companies from around the world that are advancing natural and biological solutions to
protect crops from biotic stresses such as
bacteria, fungi, nematodes, insects, arachnids, and weeds. The four finalists
competing for investment are:
· IBI-Ag: IBI Ag
harnesses the power of antibodies to develop bioinsecticides that target pests
with precision while minimizing environmental impact.
· Impetus
Agriculture: Impetus Agriculture is developing
new biological insect control products with the effectiveness of legacy
chemical methods of control.
· SOLASTA
Bio: SOLASTA Bio is a bioinsecticides company designing
nature-inspired, selectively targeted peptide insect control products.
·
Trillium Ag: Trillium Ag
is developing a platform to unlock RNAi for precise, sustainable, and effective
crop protection.
Mike Frank, CEO
of UPL Corp., said: “We were delighted to receive 237 applications for the NPP
Radicle Challenge – signaling the extraordinary innovation happening across the
biologicals space. Our business unit Natural Plant Protection (NPP) offers
growers an extensive portfolio of biosolutions to increase crop resilience and
protection, improve nutrition, and support soil health, and we’re excited to
work with pioneering innovators to help bring to market more nature-based
solutions.”
Kirk Haney,
Managing Partner of Radicle Growth, said: “We are incredibly impressed with the
game-changing technologies we have identified through the Radicle Challenge
process and believe these technologies can be transformative in advancing
natural and biological control solutions in the food value chain.”
Each company will present to a panel of judges on
March 18th. A US $1 million investment will be made in The Challenge
winner and a US $750,000 investment in the second-place winner to accelerate
their growth. In addition to the funding, the winners will get access to advice
from both UPL and Radicle senior executives to help accelerate their company's
business and technical efforts.
The NPP
Radicle Challenge marks the second competition led by UPL in collaboration with
Radicle Growth, with a total of US $1.25M invested in two companies in the 2022
‘UPL Radicle Carbon & Soil Challenge’.
