Irish agritech start-up Viridian Seeds backed by Illumina Accelerator

Viridian Seeds was one particular of 6 start off-ups decided on for the Illumina Accelerator. It will receive help for its mission to make sustainable ‘super-legumes’.

An Irish agricultural biotech start off-up has been selected to get seed funding and assist from DNA sequencing giant Illumina.

Viridian Seeds is one particular of 6 start off-ups picked by the Illumina Accelerator, which aims to enable construct breakthrough genomic firms. Viridian is the only Irish start off-up chosen in this cycle.

Primarily based in Galway and the United kingdom, the start off-up’s mission is to generate ‘super-legumes’ that can supply a sustainable source of plant protein while minimizing carbon emissions.

The company mentioned it brings together genetics, genomics and environmental footprinting abilities to build these legumes, with the aim of benefiting farmers, shoppers and the world.

The commence-ups selected by the accelerator get access to Illumina’s sequencing devices and reagents, business enterprise steerage, genomics know-how and completely operational lab space adjacent to Illumina’s campuses in Cambridge or San Francisco.

“We are very pleased to welcome these 6 superb genomics start out-ups to our Illumina Accelerator portfolio,” reported Illumina for Commence-ups worldwide head Amanda Cashin. “We have an eight-year observe history of partnering with proficient business owners.

“We’re very pleased of Illumina Accelerator’s robust portfolio of 74 genomics get started-ups focused on unlocking the electrical power of the genome to boost human health around the globe.”

Viridian Seeds co-founder Prof Charles Spillane, a researcher in plant science at the College of Galway, stated the accelerator presents the business a “tremendous option to function with just one of the very best genomics enterprise teams”.

The accelerator could also enables a quicker route to market place and assistance the start off-up raise even further financial investment by match funding.

Previous year, a team led by Spillane and Dr Aaron Golden won €1m from Science Foundation Eire for developing an AI-based platform that can evaluate adaptation to the transforming local climate.

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