Biographica has closed a £7 million funding round led by Faber VC to accelerate the development of climate-resilient crops using artificial intelligence. The London-based startup will use the capital to expand its proprietary data collection, extend its AI platform to new crop traits, and strengthen commercial relationships across the global seed industry.
The round attracted participation from new investors SuperSeed, Cardumen Capital, The Helm, EQT Foundation and Sie Ventures. Existing backers Chalfen Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, Saras Capital and Ventures Together also joined, alongside strategic angel investors. The company simultaneously announced a new partnership with BASF | Nunhems, one of the world's largest seed companies.
Developing a new crop trait—whether drought tolerance, disease resistance, or improved nutrition—typically requires more than ten years and millions of dollars in R&D spending. The most expensive and time-consuming challenge is identifying which genes control specific crop characteristics. This knowledge is essential for gene editing and breeding programs.
Biographica's AI platform addresses this bottleneck by pinpointing the most promising genetic targets within weeks. The system defines what to change, how to change it, and why those changes will generate precise trait improvements. This approach can cut crop development timelines by up to five years and reduce R&D costs significantly.
In pilot programs with leading seed and precision breeding companies, Biographica's platform identified validated gene targets 12 times faster than traditional methods. But speed isn't the only advantage. The AI can also uncover novel targets that conventional approaches miss entirely, opening the door to new high-value traits that would otherwise never reach the market.
The company is now integrating its AI-driven discovery process with rapid experimental validation to create a "lab-in-the-loop" model. This self-improving cycle, already proven in drug discovery, gives partners an increasingly fast and reliable path to trait innovation.
"We've seen AI reshape pharma, turning trial-and-error pipelines into learnable biological systems – and it works. We're bringing that same discipline to crops," said Cecily Price, CEO of Biographica. "Our partnerships with BASF | Nunhems and other leading seed companies show the industry is ready for AI-first approaches to trait discovery, to bring high-value crop varieties to market in seasons, not decades."
Biographica has proven that its technology can scale quickly across different crops and traits, working in both traditional breeding and gene-editing pipelines. Several early pilots have already progressed into commercial agreements. Targets identified by Biographica's platform are now moving into testing pipelines at partner companies.
The company's technical partnerships demonstrate that deep collaboration with the seed industry can produce tangible results. BASF | Nunhems represents the latest addition to a growing roster of partners betting on AI to compress development cycles that have remained largely unchanged for decades.
The investment comes as climate change places mounting pressure on global agricultural systems. Population growth, limited natural resources, and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are creating urgent demand for crops that can produce more food under harsher conditions.
"With climate change intensifying the pressure on agricultural systems, improving crop genetics is the most powerful lever we have to sustainably increase yields and build resilience," said Sofia Santos, Partner at Faber VC. "Biographica is redefining how agricultural innovation happens, and this investment round will allow them to scale their impact globally."
The £7 million will enable Biographica to expand its proprietary dataset—a critical component for training more accurate AI models. The funds will also support the extension of the platform to cover additional crop traits and deepen existing commercial relationships across the seed sector. With climate-resilient, nutritious, and productive crops becoming a global priority, the company is positioning itself at the center of a necessary transformation in how the agricultural industry innovates.
