New investment platform considered ‘milestone’ for Corteva

The senior director of external innovation investment at Indianapolis-based Corteva Agriscience says the company’s new investment and partnership platform will serve as a vehicle to drive innovation in the ag sector.

The agriculture company last week unveiled Corteva Catalyst at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco.

Through the platform, Corteva plans to partner with entrepreneurs and innovators to “accelerate the development of early-stage, disruptive technologies that enable farmers to sustainably produce more food and feed.”

In a bonus edition of the Agbioscience podcast from AgriNovus Indiana, Tom Greene said Corteva Catalyst will look to engage external innovation in strategic ways.

“You will hear us say ‘strategic’ quite a bit, because we are looking to identify companies, technologies, partners that have meaningful technology that align to our priorities, our strategic verticals, where we can sort of partner and co-develop and engage in ways that are very intimate and really help develop technologies that will eventually get in the hands of growers,” Greene said.

Corteva said the platform will focus on identifying opportunities across four strategic verticals: genome editing; biologicals and natural products; technology platforms; and decision science.

Greene said his hope is that early-stage startups will see Corteva Catalyst as a means to get access to growers and as a partner to help them develop new products.

“Corteva has a long tradition of addressing the critical challenges farmers face around the world by advancing innovation in partnership with the global scientific community,” Corteva Chief Technology and Digital Officer Sam Eathington said in written remarks. “Through Corteva Catalyst, we will build upon that tradition by pairing our considerable expertise and resources with the agility of start-ups and universities to deliver new solutions for farmers globally. This initiative will expand our pipeline and accelerate growth.”

Corteva Catalyst is not considered an investment fund, Greene said, but rather an investment arm of the company’s research and development operations. While the platform does have a budget and the ability to make investments, the business model will vary by company.

“We see wins as strategic collaborations. We see wins as equity investments, and in some cases, wins could be full acquisition of companies down the road,” he said. “We’ve tried to keep the door open on how we think about engagement to really cater our investment strategy, our business model on what the company needs.”

Greene said the goal is to create a portfolio of companies that enable Corteva to fuel innovation at a stronger pace.

When looking for companies to invest in, Greene said it’s less about the size of the company and more about the technology that’s being offered. He said Corteva Catalyst could invest in a startup at the pre-seed or seed stage, up to Series A or Series B and even later-stage companies.

Greene noted that while venture capital investing in the ag-tech space has dropped considerably just over the last quarter, Corteva has a longer-term view when it comes to its new platform.

“There’s going to be an incubation period to develop companies, develop technologies, get those into the marketplace,” he said. “For us, it’s a super exciting time to be invested in ag-tech for the long term annually. The innovation that’s happening doesn’t stop…and I think with partners like us, it adds some credibility and strength to early-stage companies, because they may have a little bit better line of sight to market impact and valuation of their technology.”

The full episode of the Agbioscience podcast with Tom Greene is available by clicking here.