Computomics Raises €6.3M to Scale Climate-Smart Plant Breeding
A German agritech company has secured funding to expand its climate-smart breeding platform across commercial breeding programs.
Computomics, a German agritech company, has raised €6.3 million in Series B funding to scale the commercial deployment of its climate-smart breeding platform. The round was led by Convent Capital Agri Food Fund, which invested €5 million, with participation from existing investors High-Tech Gründerfonds, MBG Baden-Württemberg and Amathaon Capital, alongside the company's founders and scientific advisers.
The financing also benefits from support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund.
Computomics was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Tübingen. The company applies machine learning and genomic analysis to plant breeding, helping breeders predict how different crop varieties are likely to perform under specific environmental conditions. Its technology combines genomic data with information on temperature, rainfall and soil conditions, as well as measurements from field trials.
## How Computomics' Technology Works
Computomics' technology uses machine learning models to predict how a particular genotype will perform in a given environment. This helps breeders assess potential crop varieties earlier in the breeding process. The company's ×SeedScore platform applies these predictions at the scale of commercial breeding programmes.
| Environment | Temperature | Rainfall | Soil Conditions | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Hot and dry | High | Low | Poor | | Cool and wet | Low | High | Good |
## Applications of Computomics' Technology
Computomics' technology is aimed at increasingly challenging growing conditions across Europe, where lengthy breeding cycles mean varieties entering the market today may have been selected under different climatic conditions several years earlier. The company works with commercial breeders across field crops, forage crops, vegetables and specialty crops.
Breeders have expressed ambition about climate resilience, but a lack of tools to predict how different crop varieties will perform under specific environmental conditions. Dr Sebastian J. Schultheiss, co-founder and CEO of Computomics, stated, "Breeders have never lacked ambition about climate resilience. What they have lacked is a way to see it before the field tells them, which takes years they no longer have."
## Expansion Plans
The funding will support the expansion of the platform across more commercial breeding programmes. Computomics' portfolio also includes CropCompass and BreedScope for climate-smart breeding, Pantograph for omics data analysis and trait discovery, and MORPHEUS and MEGAN7 for microbiome analysis.
