Biographica, a startup leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to accelerate and improve the crop trait development process by identifying high-value targets for gene editing, has raised a $9.5 million seed round.
The round was led by Faber VC, with participation from Cardumen Capital, SuperSeed, The Helm, and existing investors Chalfen Ventures and Entrepreneurs First. The capital will be used to expand Biographica’s proprietary data collection, extend its AI platform to new crop varieties, and strengthen commercial relationships across the seed industry.
The London-based company, which has already completed pilots with multiple partners, including two of the world’s top five seed producers, also announced a new partnership with BASF’s vegetable seeds business (Nunhems), though details of the collaboration are not yet being disclosed.
Founded in 2022 by Cecily Price (CEO) and Dominic Hall, PhD (CTO), Biographica combines expertise in genetics, AI/ML, and computational biology. The company argues that the bottleneck in developing new crop varieties is not gene editing itself but identifying which genes control key phenotypes, such as drought tolerance, disease resistance, or nutritional improvements.
Traditionally, methods for pinpointing precise genetic targets rely on statistical correlations that require high-throughput testing but yield limited actionable results. Biographica applies AI to rapidly identify the most relevant genes and suggest editing strategies, integrating real-world experimentation in a continuous “lab-in-the-loop” cycle that continuously improves the platform.
The company claims its technology has identified validated genetic targets up to 12 times faster than traditional methods and has uncovered novel targets that other approaches miss. This could allow high-value traits to reach the market more quickly and efficiently.
In addition to the partnership with BASF, Biographica already has agreements with other organizations such as Cibus, working on disease resistance in canola, among other key industry players. According to the founders, this commercial validation was crucial in attracting investors, demonstrating the real-world value of the company’s technology.
Biographica trains its models on large public sequencing and genetic datasets, refining them with internally generated data and combining them with multimodal datasets to capture complex genotype-phenotype interactions. As a result, the platform is species-agnostic, capable of working across a wide range of crops, from vegetables and tomatoes to chickpeas, oilseeds, and major cereals.
About Cardumen Capital
Founded in 2018 and chaired by Gil Gidron, with Gonzalo Martínez de Azagra and Igor de la Sota as founding partners, Cardumen Capital is an alternative investment manager regulated by the CNMV.
With over 15 years of experience investing in private markets, Cardumen Capital has established itself as a reference investor in high technology. With a presence across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the firm specializes in investing in companies and funds in private markets, fostering innovation, disruptive technologies, and long-term value creation.
Cardumen Capital manages €300 million in assets, has a track record of investing over €400 million, and is backed by leading global investors, corporations, institutions, pension funds, and family offices
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