Belgian agritech startup Rainbow Crops has raised €9.7 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round to advance its crop engineering platform, expand its application across multiple crops, and grow its scientific and technical teams. The round was led by Italian venture capital firm LIFTT and its investment vehicle LIFTT EuroInvest. Existing investors AIF (Agri Investment Fund), PINC, and VIB also participated, alongside new investors Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst investment platform, and Maia Ventures.
Founded to address some of agriculture's most pressing challenges, Rainbow Crops develops technologies aimed at accelerating the creation of higher-performing and more resilient crop varieties. As climate volatility increases, input costs fluctuate, and regulatory changes support wider adoption of gene editing technologies, crop developers face growing pressure to improve productivity and predictability while shortening development timelines.
To address these challenges, Rainbow Crops has developed Trait Foundry™, a platform that combines artificial intelligence, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding, and automated phenotyping. The platform is designed to identify and evaluate combinations of genetic variants associated with complex agronomic traits such as yield and stress resilience.
By integrating genome editing with breeding approaches, Rainbow Crops aims to accelerate the development of improved crop varieties while enabling the exploration of multi-gene traits at scale. The company has already demonstrated proof of concept in corn.
The new funding will support the development of the company's AI-assisted multiplex genome editing capabilities, the deployment of its platform across additional crops, and the expansion of its scientific and technical teams.
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