Edison Agrosciences
Growing agroscience through innovation.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor investor investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
* | $600k | Seed | |
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
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Edison Agrosciences, Inc. is an agricultural biotechnology firm founded in 2013 by Matthew Crisp and Dr. Thomas Hohn. The founders identified a strategic vulnerability in the global natural rubber supply, which is 90% sourced from a single, disease-susceptible tree species in Southeast Asia. Their solution was to focus on a resilient, domestically cultivable crop, leading them to the sunflower, a plant already grown on approximately one million acres in the U.S. that naturally produces small amounts of rubber.
The company operates in the industrial biomaterials market, aiming to create a sustainable, domestic source of natural rubber for the United States, which currently imports all of its supply. Its primary clients are manufacturers in industries that rely on natural rubber for its unique properties, with a significant focus on tire manufacturers who consume about 70% of global production. The business model is centered on agricultural technology development. Instead of genetic modification, Edison Agrosciences uses advanced computational breeding and agronomic techniques to develop sunflower varieties that produce a higher concentration of rubber in their leaves. This approach is designed to create a dual-use crop, allowing farmers to harvest seeds and oil as usual while also profiting from the collection of rubber-rich biomass.
The core of Edison's offering is its proprietary sunflower breeding program. The goal is to increase the rubber content in the plant's leaves, which is currently too low for economical extraction, to a commercially viable level. This creates a more secure and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional rubber production, which is linked to tropical deforestation, and synthetic rubber, which relies on petrochemicals. The company has secured significant research contracts, including over $1.5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to advance its technology. A recent $600,000 seed financing round is being used to complete a third year of field trials, scale up rubber production for customer evaluation, and develop the necessary supply chain infrastructure.
Keywords: natural rubber, sunflower, ag-tech, biomaterials, crop development, computational breeding, sustainable materials, supply chain, tire manufacturing, domestic sourcing