Moa Technology has closed a £22.2 million Series C round co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Supernova Invest.

New investors include Agri Investment Fund, GrainInnovate (managed by Artesian on behalf of the Grain Research Development Corporation), Infinity Investment Partners, and Magdalen College, Oxford.

The Oxford-based agricultural biotech firm was spun out of Oxford University in 2017 by Prof Liam Dolan and Dr Clément Champion. It develops herbicides using new modes of action to counter weed resistance to existing chemistries.

Moa’s discovery platform has screened more than 900,000 compounds. It has identified over 80 areas capable of breaking resistance across more than 500 documented cases worldwide, according to AgFunderNews.

Three Programmes Head Into Their Third Year of Trials

Three Moa programmes have entered a third year of international field trials, per UKTN. The company holds partnerships with Corteva, Nufarm, Gowan, and Certis Belchim.

Moa raised €7 million in a 2019 Series A round, per EU-Startups. The new round is roughly 2.5 times that figure.

CEO Virginia Corless previously worked at the Sahara Forest Project and Novihum Technologies, with a background spanning astrophysics and clean energy policy, according to TechFundingNews. Moa operates a glasshouse research facility in North Yorkshire alongside its Oxford headquarters.

Sources

  • Silicon Republic: initial round announcement and founder names
  • TechFundingNews: CEO background and research facility locations
  • EU-Startups: investor list and Series A context
  • AgFunderNews: partnership announcements and discovery metrics
  • UKTN: field trial stage and commercialisation trajectory

Reporting compiled and contextualised by TechScoop Ireland. Figures reconciled across the sources above.

Originally reported by Silicon Republic.