Grosvenor Estate and CDPQ Invest in Benson Hill Biosystems
Posted on 10/30/2020
St. Louis-based Benson Hill Biosystems, Inc. raised a US$ 150 million Series D round that was led by Wheatsheaf Group and GV (formerly Google Ventures). Other investors in the round include new and returning investors included Argonautic Ventures, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Emart, GS Group, Louis Dreyfus Company, iSelect Fund, Fall Line Capital, Mercury Fund, Prelude Ventures, Prolog Ventures, S2G Ventures, and additional strategic and family office investors. Benson Hill is crop design company. The company seeks to propel the commercial launch of the first Ultra-High Protein soybean varieties in 2021, among other product launches. Benson Hill sells solutions to companies of any size across the agri-food value chain to benefit from advanced tools in seed innovation through its computational platform.
Wheatsheaf Group invests in food and agriculture businesses using capital and expertise with a far-sighted perspective to deliver lasting commercial and social benefit. Wheatsheaf Group is part of the Grosvenor Estate.
Louis Dreyfus Company is a merchant and processor of agricultural goods.
Emart, a Korea-based company, is a multi-format retailer that includes Emart Hypermarkets, Emart Traders, a warehouse retail model, Shinsegae Food, which owns manufacturing facilities, food distribution channels, international restaurant and beverage franchises, Emart24 convenience stores, Emart Everyday small grocery stores, upscale mall complexes, Starbucks Korea, and SSG.COM (online mall).
Series C Round
GV led the Series C round for Benson Hill that raised US$ 60 million.
Years ago, Benson Hill claimed that its Increased Yield Maize (BHB ISY Maize) was designed to have higher key regulatory enzyme content compared to conventional maize varieties, thus increasing crop yield. Benson Hill also claimed the genetic elements made to create BHB ISY Maize was sourced form fully classified organisms and the biolistic transformation process did not use a plant pest or introduce any plant pest DNA components.
CRISPR stands for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.”
Keywords: Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Alphabet, Inc.
