Wild Bioscience, an Oxford College AgTech spinout that develops improved crop varieties utilizing AI and precision breeding, has raised a €51 million Sequence A funding to broaden their R&D and business operations, and to show their early subject successes into market-ready seed varieties.
This spherical was led by the Ellison Institute of Expertise (EIT), with participation from present buyers Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), Braavos Capital, and the Oxford College.
Dr Ross Hendron, Co-Founder and CEO of Wild Bio says: “Advancing agriculture has limitless potential to assist folks and the planet. So to attain significant, scalable affect, we want the correct buyers who’re really aligned with that large imaginative and prescient. I’m deeply grateful to EIT and to our present buyers for sharing our pleasure about what we’ve completed thus far, and for his or her united assist as we embark on this bold progress journey collectively.”
Wild Bioscience’s Sequence A positions it among the many most substantial early-stage financings in European AgriTech this yr.
Most peer investments in 2025 have ranged between €2 million and €10 million, sometimes centered on AI analytics, robotics, or data-driven farming instruments moderately than genetics or breeding.
For comparability, Switzerland’s Ecorobotix secured €90 million in Sequence D funding to scale its AI-driven precision spraying methods, representing one of many few European AgTech rounds exceeding Wild’s in absolute measurement. Within the UK, Messium raised €3.8 million for satellite-based nitrogen administration, whereas CroBio secured €805k to advance microbial options bettering soil well being.
Wild Bioscience due to this fact stands out for each funding scale and scientific focus – its AI-guided, evolution-based breeding method addresses core crop productiveness and resilience moderately than precision software or monitoring.
The co-investment between OSE and the EIT additionally marks a notable first collaboration, highlighting investor confidence in translating plant evolutionary insights into scalable, climate-resilient crop varieties.
Professor Steve Kelly, Head of the Plant Biology Institute at EIT and Co-Founder and CSO of Wild Bio, says: “Combining the groundbreaking analysis at EIT and Wild will create a strong synergy that would reshape sustainable agriculture on a worldwide scale. Collectively, we’ll speed up our skill to convey new applied sciences to market and ship progressive options that improve crop resilience, enhance yields, and promote environmental sustainability.”
Based in 2021, Wild Bioscience interprets evolutionary biology into resilient crops. By integrating plant evolution, machine studying, and precision gene enhancing, Wild Bioscience goals to ship high-yielding, climate-smart crops that assist meals safety and planetary well being.
Wild Bio specialises in crop genetics, and has developed a data-driven method to enhance crop productiveness, local weather resilience, and agricultural sustainability. The Wild Bio platform reportedly deciphers tons of of thousands and thousands of years of plant evolution to determine promising genetic enhancements from wild species.
These evolutionary improvements are then used to information precision breeding methods for contemporary elite crop varieties.
Larry Ellison, CTO and Chairman of Oracle and Founding father of the Ellison Institute of Expertise, says: “Wild Bio is utilizing AI to higher perceive the teachings discovered over thousands and thousands of years of evolution encoded in plant genomes. These insights mixed with precision breeding has enabled Wild Bio to develop new forms of crops with each increased yields and local weather resilience. The final word purpose is to develop these new crop varieties on a business scale and assist present meals safety all over the world. EIT is dedicated to working with Wild Bio to achieve this purpose.”
The corporate began within the College of Oxford with Founders Dr Ross Hendron and Prof. Steve Kelly, who spun-out the enterprise to translate their scientific analysis out of the lab and onto the farm.
Since then, the workforce has grown to 30 of their Oxford-based headquarters and their main crop initiatives are in subject trialling packages spanning 4 nations.
Ed Bussey, Chief Govt Officer, OSE says: “We’re thrilled to associate with the Ellison Institute of Expertise for the primary time as co-investors in Wild Bioscience. Ross Hendron was one in every of OSE’s early Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, and the corporate is a superb instance of how our venture-building engine helps Oxford scientists flip breakthrough concepts into world-class companies.
“EIT’s funding is a robust endorsement of Wild’s scientific benefit and can speed up its mission to boost crop resilience and construct a extra sustainable meals system.”
