Pluton Biosciences is today’s microbe sleuth and they just raised $6.6M in seed money to take their operation to the next level.
The natural product development company is devoted to unearthing new microbes to help combat climate change and replace man-made chemicals with environmentally friendly microbial products.
Their high-throughput microbial discovery platform identifies and isolates unique organisms within months, boosting research and development performance for AgTech.
Soundbite: “There are a trillion species of microbes, and we only use a couple of them,” said Barry Goldman, Pluton Founder and Chief Scientific Officer. “We’re trying to use that huge reservoir of biodiversity out there to solve big problems. Nature spent 2 billion years trying to solve them, so let’s let nature tell us the answer.”
Mosquito mission: One example of the company’s biotech solution served the company’s own leadership. Goldman and Pluton CEO Steve Slater wanted to find a natural pesticide for mosquitoes. “It was actually pretty straightforward—we literally did it in months, and they came out of Barry’s backyard,” Slater said.