Tag: ag tech

Federico Tripodi, MBA’08, is CEO of Calyxt, a gene-editing technology company focused on the food and agriculture industries, that celebrated its initial public offering on The Nasdaq Stock Market June 20, 2017.

Tripodi started his career in his native Argentina in 1998 in the research field of biotechnology traits and chemistry formulations; he moved to Saint Louis in 2001. He spent nearly two-decades in the ag biotech and seed industry with Monsanto. Calyxt is based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Paris-based Cellectis.

“As more and more food companies are looking for specialty ingredients that can help them to satisfy customers’ evolving needs and desire to lead healthier lifestyles, Calyxt is perfectly positioned to be an industry leader with the emergence of gene editing as a truly game-changing technology in the food space,” said Federico Tripodi, CEO, Calyxt. “Coupled with our innovative commercial strategy, this will allow Calyxt to meet the needs of today’s consumer preferences – all of the while helping to shape the landscape for the future of food as we know it.”

“Calyxt believes that the precision, specificity, cost-effectiveness and development speed of the company’s gene editing technologies will enable it to provide meaningful disruption to the food and agriculture industries. We are proud to welcome Calyxt to the Nasdaq family of innovators,” said Nelson Griggs, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Listings, Nasdaq.

Source: GLOBE NEWSWIRE

Images: NASDAQ, Inc.

The Midwest is known as the breadbasket of the United States. Food production was, and continues to be, critical to the growth and development of the United States and nations around the world. As global food scarcity becomes an increasingly urgent issue, governments will grapple with viable methods to increase sustainably the global food supply.

Yield Lab is an accelerator for agricultural technology startups. The companies in its portfolio receive seed funding and business mentoring in the hopes of harvesting innovations that seek to either increase agricultural yields for farmers or bring efficient solutions in the field. Increasing agricultural yields will grow the global food supply and will have a marked effect in staving off alarming levels of world hunger.

Yield Lab is currently cultivating 15 startups. Each is geared toward assisting farmers to optimize their food production. The Yield Lab recently expanded its operations overseas to Galway, Ireland and, in February 2017, admitted three new startup companies into its accelerator program.

The portfolio is diverse and ranges from a company like Holganix, which produces a 100%-natural bio-nutritional product that promotes strong plant health and sustainable soils while reducing the need for traditional fertilizers and pesticides, to Aptimmune that specializes in the development and application of prophylactic measures against viral diseases of swine.

As part of Washington University’s “CELect” entrepreneur consulting course with Professor Cliff Holekamp, law students Harshil Shukla and Spenser Owens teamed with undergraduate business students Kyle Birns and Josh Moskow to assist local agricultural technology accelerator, Yield Lab, in identifying meaningful ways of collecting and reporting environmental, social, and economic impact metrics to investors.

More information about the Yield Lab can be found at http://www.theyieldlab.com.

Blog post by: Kyle Birns (BSBA’17), Josh Moskow (BSBA’17), Harshil Shukla (JD’18), and Spenser Owens (JD’18).