Rainbow Crops raises €9.7m

Rainbow Crops has raised €9.7 million in seed funding to scale its AI supported multiplex genome editing platform for next generation crops.

The Ghent-based agtech company said the funding would help advance its technology platform, expand its application across multiple crops, and scale its scientific and technical team. The round follows a recent $7 million grant from the Gates Foundation.

The oversubscribed seed round was led by Italian venture capital company LIFTT, together with its vehicle LIFTT EuroInvest. Existing investors AIF, PINC, and VIB participated, alongside new investors Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst investment platform, and Maia Ventures.

Rainbow Crops is developing improved crop varieties by engineering complex agronomic traits. Its proprietary Trait Foundry platform integrates artificial intelligence, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding, and automated phenotyping to identify, generate, and evaluate combinations of genetic variants behind traits such as yield and stress resilience.

The company said proof of concept had been obtained in corn. By combining multiplex genome editing with breeding, the platform creates plant populations with rationally designed genetic diversity, allowing the company and its partners to explore and select multi-gene trait architectures at scale.

Giacomo Bastianelli, CEO and co-founder of Rainbow Crops, said: “This investment allows us to accelerate the transition from early validation to systematic deployment of our platform. Our goal is to accelerate complex trait engineering and make it accessible to partners globally.”

He added: “This round signals strong external validation and positions Rainbow Crops as an emerging category leader in AI-driven, multiplex genome engineering. We are now focused on innovative partnerships and on delivering real-world impact in the field.”

The investment comes as agriculture faces rising pressure from climate volatility, input cost fluctuation, water stress, soil constraints, food security concerns, and the need to improve yields without simply increasing land use. Traditional breeding has delivered major gains over decades, but complex traits such as drought resilience, heat tolerance, and yield stability are difficult to engineer quickly because they are shaped by multiple genes and environmental factors.

Investor interest in agtech is increasingly focused on platforms that combine biology, computation, automation, and field validation. The commercial promise lies not only in faster discovery, but in more reliable translation from laboratory insight to crop performance.

Edoardo Bianchi, project manager at LIFTT, said: “Rainbow Crops is a compelling example of breakthrough innovation in agritech – a category-defining platform that integrates AI, genome editing, and real-world validation to address critical crop breeding challenges. At LIFTT, we are proud to support and invest in such a visionary project.”

The involvement of strategic and specialist investors gives Rainbow Crops more than financial backing. Corteva’s participation through Corteva Catalyst brings an industry link to one of the world’s major agricultural technology businesses, while VIB gives access to scientific expertise and research infrastructure. The company said investor interest was underpinned by early field validation in major crops such as corn, a growing proprietary data advantage, engagement with leading seed companies, and backing from the Gates Foundation.

The round also reflects the more selective funding environment facing deep tech and life sciences companies. Capital is still available for businesses with strong technical validation, defensible intellectual property, and clear industrial routes to market, even as broader venture funding remains cautious. Alternative financing has become more prominent, with venture debt filling some startup funding gaps, but science-led companies with long development cycles still depend on patient equity and strategic support.

Gene editing remains commercially sensitive, and regulatory conditions vary by market. Crop developers need technical performance, approval routes, farmer adoption, seed-company partnerships, consumer confidence, and evidence that edited traits can perform under field conditions.

Rainbow Crops now has to turn platform promise into execution. Scaling across multiple crops requires scientific depth, data infrastructure, automated phenotyping capacity, and partner relationships capable of turning genetic insight into commercial varieties. The seed round gives the company more resources to expand at a point when food resilience has become an industrial, environmental, and strategic concern.