Helping growers achieve a more sustainable and productive agricultural system by empowering the plant microbiome.
THE CHALLENGE
Robigo’s growth was slowed down by lengthy R&D cycles, navigating complex and evolving regulatory pathways, and space constraints on scaling manufacturing.
THE SOLUTION
By expanding their lab space and consolidating R&D and testing in one location, Robigo more than doubled their plant assay throughput, accelerating product development and field trials while reducing their regulatory burden.
“The Engine's flexibility and support during Robigo's growth has given us more time and resources to reach critical milestones ahead of our Series A financing.”
Andee WallaceCEO & Founder, Robigo
Every year, farmers spend over $80B on six billion pounds of pesticides, and yet still lose 20–40% of crops to pests and disease. As the climate changes, these losses are expected to increase 10–25% for every degree of atmospheric warming. Meanwhile, the pesticides continue to accumulate, depleting global biodiversity and diminishing the health of our soils.
But what if the soil itself held the solution? In natural ecosystems, plants and the microbes that live on them have evolved together for billions of years, creating symbiotic relationships that nurture plants in ways we are only beginning to understand. Conventional pesticides, however, kill every microbe in the plant and soil, including the microbes that benefit plant health.
The team at Robigo believes there’s a better way: instead of killing all the good bacteria, what if we could harness them to protect crops? Instead of destroying soil biodiversity, what if we could use it to our advantage?
Spun out of MIT in 2021, Robigo is a biomanufacturing company that leverages gene editing and data science to bioengineer the good bacteria as a replacement to conventional pesticides. By empowering microbes to protect crops from disease and recover lost yields, Robigo's platform technology enables the development of more reliable microbial solutions that restore soil health and boost agricultural productivity.
The technology is promising, but success is far from guaranteed. Time is often the most precious resource for startups: companies race to achieve technical milestones that can unlock new funding — or else hit the end of their runway. Tough Tech companies like Robigo have it even harder. Their success requires capital-intensive infrastructure to prove their technology, such as wet lab and engineering space, and they are held captive by lengthy R&D cycles.
For Robigo, however, the road to commercial success is being dramatically shortened, thanks to their use of The Engine’s infrastructure. The Engine was built to support the needs of Tough Tech startups like Robigo, where early-stage teams can share workspaces with other teams, and resources can be strategically and flexibly allocated depending on the needs of the teams.
"The Engine's flexibility and support during Robigo's growth has given us more time and resources to reach critical milestones ahead of our Series A financing," says Andee Wallace, CEO & Co-Founder of Robigo. One such milestone includes field trials to demonstrate the efficacy of their microbial solutions in controlling plant diseases.
But to get to field trials, Robigo had to prove the technology in the lab. "We were initially limited by our plant assay throughput, which was slowing down validation of our microbes' behavior in plants and subsequently the pace at which we can design-build-test-learn and iterate on our microbial product," Wallace explains.
But thanks to the infrastructure provided by The Engine, Robigo is not only overcoming these limitations but thriving beyond them. Wallace points out that an expansion in their lab space allows them "to bring in 4 additional growth chambers, which will increase our plant assay throughput 4X over current capacity." This critical upscaling will dramatically expedite Robigo's product development and field trial testing, which is currently ongoing.
The Engine's flexible space allows for both R&D and testing under one roof. For agtech startups like Robigo, this is a logistical accelerant. Wallace elaborates,"Given the permitting requirements for moving engineered microbes and plant pathogens from one location to another, it would be untenable to establish two locations at our current stage." By enabling Robigo to keep all its activities together, The Engine has effectively reduced the startup's regulatory burden, thereby helping it streamline operations and maintain focus on the science.
Apart from enhancing Robigo's R&D capabilities, The Engine has also aided them in achieving manufacturing milestones. Wallace cites,
"As part of our product development, we've also been grateful to have space in The Engine to build out in-house R&D-scale manufacturing capabilities, including benchtop bioreactors and a spray dryer for downstream processing."
These facilities enable Robigo to further optimize microbial performance, thereby improving the quality and consistency of the product needed for field trials.
The future looks promising for Robigo, especially with plans to further expand their bench footprint."Further expanding to 27 benches will enable us to set up a 10L bioreactor to scale our fermentation capacity to meet our field trial needs,"Wallace reveals. This will set the stage for Robigo to scale the number of field trial locations and eventually seek commercial approval for their microbial solutions.
In the world of Tough Tech, where complexity and long R&D cycles are the norm, The Engine's infrastructure proves to be an invaluable asset for startups like Robigo. By providing the flexibility, space, and support needed for rigorous R&D and manufacturing, The Engine is not just a facility but a catalyst that transforms the trajectory of innovative companies towards faster and more efficient paths to success.
