Oxford crop protection startup completes £35m round of funding
Oxford University spinout moa Technology Ltd has completed their £35 million Series B financing round, having been advised by Pennington Manches Cooper.
The investment was co-led by new investor Lansdowne Partners and existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises and Parkwalk Advisors, with participation from existing investors BGF Investments, Bits x Bites Growth Fund, IP Group and University of Oxford.
James Went, corporate partner at Penningtons Manches Cooper, who have offices in Reading, said: “We are delighted to have advised moa on their Series B financing.
"They’re addressing one of the truly hard challenges of today in developing safe and sustainable herbicides to support farmers producing food for the growing global population. We look forward to continuing to support them on their journey.”
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moa is a crop protection company spun out from Oxford University. Its proprietary technology uses miniaturized plants to work to discover new modes of action that can control resistant weeds that plague farmers worldwide.
Its three proprietary platforms, GALAXY, TARGET, and SELECT, uniquely utilise miniaturized living plants in combination with cutting-edge techniques in genetics, phenotypic analysis and data analytics to rapidly screen hundreds of thousands of natural and synthetic chemistries to find those that work differently.
Dr Virginia Corless, Chief Executive Officer for moa said “This funding will enable us to accelerate the development of the most promising leads in our abundant pipeline and deliver the novel safe and sustainable products necessary for us all to be able to count on a safe, reliable, and resilient agricultural industry for the future.
"We’re grateful to James Went and the Penningtons Manches Cooper team for their help in making it all happen.”
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