A UK agritech specialising in the next generation of green insecticides has secured a further round of investment totalling £4 million to scale up the development of its unique nature-inspired pesticides, the first of their kind to be developed worldwide.

Investment in this pre-Series A funding round was led by Yield Lab Europe. Other investors include Rubio Impact Ventures, Scottish Enterprise, Cavallo Ventures, SIS Ventures, UKI2S, and several private agritech investors. Funding includes grant support from Innovate UK’s Transforming Food Production competition and Scottish Enterprise. This latest round brings the total raised by SOLASTA Bio to £5.5 million.

Based in Glasgow, SOLASTA Bio develops environmentally-friendly Insect Control Agents (ICAs) that meet a global need for new and effective crop protection. These ICAs 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 ICAs leads to a reduction in pest species. SOLASTA Bio’s platform can be mobilised for any pest of interest. 

With its latest funding secured, SOLASTA Bio is aiming to scale up its UK and US operations, expand its technical and commercial teams, creating 25 jobs, accelerate the development of its technology platform and target new markets.

Having run several successful early-stage R&D trials with commercial partners, SOLASTA is on course to bring its first ICAs to market in 2027, in at least half the time traditionally taken by synthetic pest control products. SOLASTA Bio’s technology is patent protected with further patent protection currently under submission.

SOLASTA Bio is led by co-founding management team Shireen Davies, PhD, CEO, Professor Julian Dow, CSO, and former BASF senior executive Dr Paul Bernasconi, alongside Chair, Dr Rob Wylie, CFO, David Armour, and Chief Commercial Officer, Dr Daphne Preuss. The company currently employs a team of 25 R&D, commercial staff and consultants.

The global insecticides market is currently dominated by synthetic chemicals accounting for 94% of insect control solutions, with a projected 2028 value of $27 billion¹. While 75% of food crops are dependent on pollinator insects, other insects cause enormous social, health and economic damage accounting for at least $70 billion in US crop losses alone. 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. 

Shireen Davies PhD, FRSE, CEO, SOLASTA Bio commented: “We’ve spent the past 18 months developing our platform and validating peptide candidates with expert third parties and commercial partners. We’re really excited by the results and feel that we’re ready to take the next step towards commercialising our technology. With the issue of food security, and effective crop protection becoming an increasingly pressing issue for the agriculture industry and governments worldwide, there is an urgent need for sustainable environmentally-friendly alternatives to current synthetic pesticides. We’re confident that our technology provides the solution and has the potential to make a huge impact.”

Kerry Sharp, Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise, said: “SOLASTA is a terrific example of how breakthroughs in science and academia can be brought to bear on the world’s grand challenges and build the high-growth businesses of the future.

“We’ve supported the company since its very earliest stages and continue to be impressed by its product development; expanding, diverse team; and the strong cadre of investors it’s attracted.”

Oliver Sexton, Investment Director UKI2S commented, “The fund backs world changing technology at an early stage and the results that the SOLASTA have shown point to a notable improvement in pest control, vastly reducing harm to beneficial insects and reducing use of petrochemicals.”

Harry Howarth, Investment Manager, SIS Ventures commented: As an investor in impact-led business, SOLASTA Bio is a superb example of how business can effectively balance people, planet and profit. There’s a clear industry demand for their eco-friendly insect control agents, with significant benefits for crop protection.  We’re looking forward to continuing our work with Shireen and the team as they move one step closer to bringing these products to market.”

Tijl Hoefnagels, Venture Partner, Rubio Impact Ventures commented "SOLASTA’s team translated deep insect physiology knowledge to pest control agents that bring no collateral damage to other animals or pollinators. This is a huge white spot in the current market offering. As Rubio deems the loss of biodiversity as urgent as climate change, SOLASTA is right in the sweet spot of what we want to invest in." 

Brett Morris, Managing Director, Cavallo Ventures commented “Cavallo Ventures is thrilled to partner with SOLASTA Bio and invest in their mission to develop eco-friendly bio-insecticides. Their unique, differentiated neuropeptide technology provides a targeted approach to pest control addressing growers’ critical unmet crop protection needs. We’re excited to support Dr Shireen Davies and her world-class team to help SOLASTA define and scale the next generation of biological insecticides in the coming years.

Chris Danks, Innovation Lead, Innovate UK commented “We are delighted to have supported this investment with Innovate UK providing aligned grant support through our Transforming Food Production Investor Partnership initiative”.

About The Yield Lab

The Yield Lab Europe is an Agtech impact venture capital fund, which invests into early stage European AgriFoodTech companies to make our global food and agriculture production system more sustainable and more efficient whilst improving profitability.  This includes technologies in crop production, animal health and welfare, precision agriculture, supply chain/logistics, food ingredients, supply chain, food processing and packaging. The Yield Lab Europe also runs an award-winning accelerator for earlier stage companies. 

About Scottish Enterprise

Scottish Enterprise (SE) is Scotland’s national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. It supports businesses to innovate and scale to transform the Scottish economy by focusing on new market opportunities through targeted investment, innovation and internationalisation.

About UKI2S

UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S, “The Fund”) is an early-stage investment fund backed by UK Research and Innovation (“UKRI”), Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (“Dstl”), the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (“BEIS”) (through the Government Office for Technology Transfer (“GOTT”)), the UK Atomic Energy Authority (“UKAEA”) and other public bodies (“The Fund Partners”).

The Fund supports the most ambitious UK innovators at seed and beyond to facilitate sustainable growth, enhance the health and security of society, improve productivity, and deliver economic gains from the UK’s publicly funded intellectual assets. UKI2S is managed by Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Ltd, which is part of the Future Planet Capital Group (“FPC”)

About SIS Ventures

SIS Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Social Investment Scotland (SIS), provides the tools and mission-aligned investment required to help early-stage businesses grow and deliver impact at scale. In return for investment, SIS Ventures seeks a mission lock – where the social and/or environmental mission of the organisation is locked into the Articles of Association and cannot be changed without consent. Launched in 2018 and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, SIS Ventures has already raised and deployed £4.4 million among 12 early-stage impact-led businesses.

SIS Ventures is a signatory to the Operating Principles of Impact Management which provide a global framework for investors to ensure that impact considerations are integrated throughout an investment lifecycle. Targets for investment include businesses which are committed to progressing the diversity and inclusion agenda and those whose products or services progress the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

About Rubio Impact Ventures

Rubio Impact Ventures is a leading impact venture fund based in the Netherlands with € 150 million AUM. Rubio invests in world-changing entrepreneurs who unite powerful positive impact with a scalable commercial business; the future-proof approach to successful business. Rubio offers its investments a winning blend of capital, expertise and network access to help them accelerate to the next level.

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK is UK’s innovation agency helping UK businesses to grow through the development and commercialisation of new products, processes and services, supported by an outstanding innovation ecosystem that is agile, inclusive and easy to navigate.

Innovate UK’s £90 million Transforming Food Production programme is supporting new ways to produce food that reduce emissions and pollution and contribute to feeding a growing world population. The funding will help businesses, researchers and industry to transform food production, meet the growing demand and move towards net zero emissions by 2040. Eleven innovative SMEs have benefited from aligned grant to support investment raises as part of our Investor Partnership initiatives within this programme.