New financing helps local agtech startup to acquire greenhouse company Wildwood

By Nathan Rubbelke, St. Louis Business Journal | December 8, 2022

Solis Agrosciences, a St. Louis-based start-up founded earlier this year to provide research and development services to agricultural technology companies, said Thursday it has raised capital from notable local investors to help pursue its growth plan.

With the new financing, Solis said it has completed the acquisition of a local greenhouse company and will expand its workforce and R&D service offerings. BioGenerator Ventures, Hermann Companies and St. Louis serial entrepreneur Jim McKelvey led the financing of Solis.

Solis has not disclosed the amount of the funding round. A regulatory document Solis filed Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed the company raised $3.1 million as part of a $6.05 million offer.

Founded in May 2022, Solis is a business-to-business company that provides technology and research services to agtech companies and researchers. Based at the Helix Center Biotech Incubator in Creve Coeur, it offers what it describes as an end-to-end “plant pipeline as a service” that helps companies develop and implement new crop traits.

Solis co-founder and chairman Mary Fernandes said Solis wants to be the Amazon Web Services, which provides companies with cloud computing services, of the plant and biotechnology sector. She said Solis has a growing customer base and works with businesses of all sizes, achieving success by having repeat customers.

“They start a small project and they see how well it went and they trust us and come back to us,” Fernandes said. “We hope to continue to grow our customer base.”

Since launching, Solis has grown into a team that Fernandes says is currently in double digits, with plans to use the growth funding to expand the team and R&D service offerings. She said she closed a new hire on Thursday and the company is looking for a director of R&D.

Solis’ funding round will also expand its footprint, with the startup saying Thursday it has acquired Wildwood-based Fahr Greenhouse to bolster its greenhouse and field testing services. As part of the acquisition, Solis plans to continue Fahr’s existing floriculture business while renovating the facility to use for the R&D services it provides to customers.

Solos developed from BioGenerator, the start-up creation arm of local innovation hub BioSTL. It was founded through a collaboration of Fernandes; Martha Schlicheran entrepreneur who previously held executive positions at Monsanto and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals; David Smoller; co-founder of SAGE Labs, which was spun out of Sigma-Aldrich in 2013 and sold the following year; Tom Cohen, director of BioGenerator Ventures; and Charlie Bolton; senior director of BioGenerator.