Biographica Raises $9.4 Million to Use AI for Climate-Resilient Crop Development

London-based AI and genomics startup Biographica has raised £7 million (US$9.4 million) in a Seed funding round to accelerate its creation of climate-resilient, productive and nutritious crops using an AI platform that identifies promising genetic targets 12 times faster than traditional methods. The company also announced a new partnership with leading seed company BASF Nunhems.

Founded in 2022, Biographica develops an AI platform that analyses biological data to identify genetic targets for crop improvement in weeks rather than years, addressing traditional breeding programmes that can take more than a decade to identify useful genes and bring new varieties to market. The company said its platform identified proven gene targets 12 times faster than conventional methods and can uncover novel targets that traditional approaches miss. The new funding will be used to expand data collection, extend the AI platform to cover more crop traits, deepen commercial relationships across the seed industry and support rapid experimental validation of AI-driven discoveries.

Climate change is intensifying pressure on global agricultural systems through more frequent and severe drought, heat stress, floods and disease outbreaks, creating urgent demand for faster crop improvement cycles. Traditional breeding and gene-editing programmes cannot keep pace with the rate of climate change using conventional methods. For India, which is highly vulnerable to climate-related agricultural disruptions and where food security is a national priority, AI-accelerated crop trait discovery platforms like Biographica's offer potential pathways to faster development of drought-tolerant, heat-resilient and disease-resistant varieties suited to Indian growing conditions.

The funding round was led by Faber VC and included participation from SuperSeed, Cardumen Capital, The Helm, EQT Foundation, Sie Ventures and existing investors Chalfen Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, Saras Capital and Ventures Together. CEO Cecily Price said the company is bringing the same AI-driven transformation that has reshaped pharmaceutical drug discovery to crop science, bringing high-value crop varieties to market in seasons rather than decades. Biographica's partnership with BASF Nunhems signals that established seed industry players are open to integrating AI-first approaches to trait discovery into their commercial development pipelines.

Key figure — 12x faster than traditional gene target identification methods