A Glasgow University spinout specialising in the next generation of green insecticides has secured seed investment of £1.3 million.
Established in May 2020 after four years of research, SOLASTA Bio develops environmentally-friendly products for crop protection. These biopesticides also preserve the ecosystem by protecting beneficial insects such as bees.
The company has developed the world’s first technology platform for creating neuropeptide-based insect control products that are nature-inspired rather than selected from a synthetic chemistry library.
These products effectively target insect pests while preserving beneficial pollinators such as bees in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. Disturbance of target physiological processes by neuropeptide-based bioinsecticides leads to death in pest species. SOLASTA Bio’s platform can be mobilised for any pest of interest.
Investors in this seed funding round include The Yield Lab Europe, SIS Ventures, members of Cambridge Agritech and UKI2S, who also provided access to the UKI2S managed Innovate UK Sub Fund grant.
Founding investors UKI2S and Scottish Enterprise provided pre-seed funding.
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With this latest funding secured, SOLASTA Bio is aiming to take the trials of its biopesticides out of the laboratory and into real-world settings. The company aims to bring its first biopesticides to market in 2027, around half the time traditionally taken by synthetic pest control products.
The company was co-founded by award-winning scientist and entrepreneur Professor Shireen Davies, CEO, world leader in insect biology and functional genomics Professor Julian Dow, CSO, former BASF senior executive Paul Bernasconi, CTO; and Professor Robert Liskamp, peptide technology. The three management team co-founders are joined by the Chair, Rob Wylie and CFO David Armour, with a team of R&D staff based in Glasgow.
However, the insecticides market is under increasing pressure from widespread insect resistance, lack of species specificity, increasing regulatory controls and consumer preferences for non-chemical residues.
“The global market for insecticides has been under intense scrutiny for many years now, with growing demands on food production requiring greater levels of crop protection, counterbalanced by heightened concerns for the environment,” said Professor Davies.
“Through our proprietary technology platform, we have developed a world-leading solution which represents a profound change for how insect control agents are discovered, and a step change in how we not only protect our crops worldwide, but also our ecosystem. This seed funding now allows us to accelerate our R&D plans and move towards Series A in 2022.”