Enko Completes its $80M Series C to Progress Sustainable Crop Solutions for World Food Security

Additional raise co-led by Eight Roads Ventures, Nufarm, and others will advance Enko's pipeline of leading crop health molecules

MYSTIC, Conn., Jan. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Enko, the crop health company, today announced that it has raised additional funding from Eight Roads Ventures (a global proprietary investment firm backed by Fidelity), Nufarm, Endeavor8, and Akroyd LLC. This raise, which follows Enko's initial close of $70 million in July 2022, brings the company's overall capital raised to date to $150 million. Enko will use the new funds to advance the company's product pipeline of novel crop protection chemistries and provide critical solutions for large scale global food security challenges.

"The cracks in our global food system are impossible to ignore, and ag-bio companies like Enko are at the leading edge of applying new digital tools to drive innovation and future proof our food supply," said Dr. Prem Pavoor, Senior Partner, Head of India & Healthcare Investments, Eight Roads Ventures. "By investing in better crop protection, we can help improve yields, reduce waste, and create more sustainable food systems for our growing population in an increasingly unstable world. In challenging macroeconomic environments, we need to lean into essential systems like agriculture."

Since its start in 2017, Enko has generated hundreds of leading molecules across all categories of crop protection through its ENKOMPASS™ technology platform, which combines DNA-encoded library screening with machine learning and structure-based design to quickly find new, better performing and more targeted chemistries. Enko's product pipeline is currently led by a range of herbicides that are breaking cycles of weed and pest resistance and are being developed to reduce environmental load compared to current solutions.

"These funds will help us to amplify our efforts to bring effective new crop protection solutions to market," said Jacqueline Heard, CEO of Enko. "Farmers worldwide are struggling with mounting challenges exacerbated by climate change. Enko is working to help growers cost-effectively adapt and mitigate key challenges to the food chain around the world: pesticide-resistant weeds, fungus, and pests."

The additional funding follows a year in which Enko announced its Series C funding round, as well as continued partnerships with three of the largest agricultural companies in the world – Bayer, Syngenta, and Nufarm.

About Enko
Enko Chem, Inc. designs safe and sustainable solutions to farmers' biggest crop threats today, from pest resistance to new diseases by applying the latest drug discovery and development approaches from pharma to agriculture. Enko (formally registered as Enko Chem Inc.), is headquartered in Mystic, Connecticut. For more information, visit enko.ag.

About Eight Roads Ventures
Eight Roads Ventures is a global proprietary investment firm backed by Fidelity, managing over $11 billion of assets across China, India, Europe, Israel, Japan and the U.S. Eight Roads 50-year history of investing includes partnerships with over 300 healthcare and technology companies globally. Some of Eight Roads Ventures' global investments include Alibaba, Beam Therapeutics, Cipla Health, Denali Therapeutics, Immuneel Therapeutics, Innovent Biologics, Insilico Medicine, Laurus Labs, Medbanks, Semma Therapeutics and WuXi PharmaTech

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SOURCE Enko