top of page
Contact Us
Contact Us
Contact Us
The Yield Lab North America
Launched in 2014, the Yield Lab North America, based in St. Louis, Missouri, invests in AgriFood Tech companies with technologies focused on crops, animal health, digital agriculture, logistics, and food ingredients. Initial investments range from $100,000 – $1.5M.
Our General Partners have a unique mix of industry and venture capital experience, allowing the Yield Lab team to quickly help portfolio companies find customers, collaborators, and investors.
COMPANIES
Ascribe Bioscience
Ascribe Bioscience develops products that enable farmers to combat crop pathogens without negative impacts on the environment.
Pluton Biosciences
Pluton Biosciences is a biotech startup that specializes in the fields of biotechnology and energy.
Digested Organics
Digested Organics manufactures filtration solutions to help businesses decrease waste through onsite treatment to produce clean water.
Hydrosat
Hydrosat is a geospatial data and analytics company. We distill satellite and weather data into actionable insights for our customers.
Lepidext
Lepidext has isolated a strain of a naturally occurring virus that causes sterility in the corn earworm. Their product, Vanesco-Hz, is a revolutionary control for this major agricultural pest.
Flywire Cameras
FlyWire’s turn-key precision fishing platform combines patented technology and deep manufacturing expertise to increase efficiency and drive down at-sea monitoring costs.
Foodshed.io
Foodshed.io is connecting sustainable producers to local wholesale markets.
Swinetech
GroGuru
GroGuru is focused on helping farmers implement strategic irrigation management.
Planetarians
Planetarians is a food ingredient technology company, upcycling by-products and solid food waste into high protein and high fiber ingredients. Their first product is processed sunflour seeds as a flour.
Aggio
Aggio is an enterprise platform that enables marketing and sales teams to harmonize data, consolidate planning assumptions, and turn insights into actions. Their suite of cloud based platforms were built from the ground up specifically for the agriculture industry.
Impetus
Impetus Agriculture is developing a new mode-of-action biological insecticide that will provide more durable efficacy and mitigate resistance that insects can develop to plant-incorporated biological insecticides contained in biotech crops.
EIWA
EIWA is an imagery analysis startup using a combination of drones, field-level imagery, and computer vision to analyze, predict and model crop behavior for the plant breeding industry.
Plastomics
Plastomics is using chloroplast genetic engineering to develop the next generation of highly performing crops.
RNAgri
RNAgri is developing an inexpensive way of manufacturing RNAi, which can be used to alter plant characteristics such as herbicide resistance or used to control insect pests.
EIO Diagnostics
EIO Diagnostics uses multispectral imaging to detect udder abnormalities as they form, enabling early diagnosis of udder infections that cost the global dairy industry more than $10 billion annually.
Terviva
Terviva is commercializing Pongamia, a perennial tree grown on unproductive land that produces an annual harvest of oil pods.
Holganix
Holganix is a 100% natural bio nutritional product that promotes strong plant health and sustainable soils while reducing the need for traditional fertilizers and pesticides.
New West Genetics
New West Genetics is breeding industrial hemp seed for applications in beer brewing, human/animal nutrition and nutraceutical usage.
Ecto
Ecto cryopreserves fish eggs as a service so that fish farmers can use them after spawning season ends and in order to enhance breeding opportunities.
AGERpoint
AGERpoint provides comprehensive GIS-based asset inventory, data and precision agriculture solutions to growers of tree, wine and bush-based crops.
Nutrivert
Nutrivert is developing a postbiotic formulation of a feed additive that increases livestock feed conversion, providing an alternative to antibiotics.
Nanoguard
Nanoguard is developing cold plasma technology for the processing of grains.
Lean Media
Lean Media is building the first Data Management Platform powered by data and dedicated to bringing agribusiness control when targeting verified farmers, producers and rural America audience via online advertising.
Bayotech
Bayotech manufactures chemical reactors that greatly reduce the capital and operating costs associated with ammonia fertilizer production.
TEAM
Jim Tobin
Pat Pinkston
Pat Pinkston is a Managing Director at the Yield Lab St. Louis. Prior to the Yield Lab, Pat served at John Deere as Vice President of the Technology & Information, Intelligence Solutions Group, as well as VP of Global Platform Services.
Sherri Brown
Sherri Brown serves as Managing Director to the Yield Lab St. Louis. Prior to the Yield Lab, Sherri was Monsanto’s Vice President for Science Strategy, VP for Global Technology/Product Development, and VP for Chemistry Technology. She also serves as President at the Zonta Club of St. Louis.
Kyle Welborn
Kyle is a co-founder and Partner at Cultivation Capital. He leads the the operations team of nine staff members which manages three venture funds and three accelerator programs.
Bob Nordgren
Dr. Robert Nordgren is a Managing Director at The Yield Lab St. Louis. Bob has been engaged in the Animal Health Industry as a leader in the discovery, development and marketing of veterinary vaccines and biotherapeutics for the past 30 years, most recently with Merial and Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica.
Thad Simons
Thad Simons is co-founder and Managing Director of The Yield Lab. From 2001 to 2014, he led Novus as President and CEO in its growth into a global animal health and nutrition company with sales exceeding US $1 billion.
Chris Danforth
Chris Danforth is a founding partner of the Yield Lab and serves as Managing Director for the Yield Lab St. Louis. He also serves as a General Partner on Cultivation Capital’s Life Science Fund and as Chairman of the Board for Kennelwood Pet Resorts.
Tom Adamitis
Tom Adamitis is co-founder and Managing Director of The Yield Lab St. Louis. He formerly served as the Global Vice President of Raw Materials and Energy Procurement for Anheuser-Busch InBev, one of the world’s largest consumer product companies.
bottom of page