Left to Right_ Prof Hilde Nelissen (leading researcher at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology) and Giacomo Bastianelli (CEO of Rainbow Crops) holding Maize.
Rainbow Crops, a next-generation agtech company developing improved crop varieties by engineering complex agronomic traits, today announced it has raised €9.7 million to further advance its technology platform, expand its application across multiple crops, and scale the team.
The funding will accelerate the company’s AI-supported multiplex genome editing capabilities, support the deployment of its platform in key crops, and strengthen the team across both scientific and technical functions to drive execution.
The over-subscribed seed funding round was led by Italian venture capital company LIFTT, together with its vehicle LIFTT EuroInvest, with participation from existing investors AIF (Agri Investment Fund), PINC, and VIB, as well as new investors Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst™ investment platform, and Maia Ventures, signalling strong investor interest and confidence in Rainbow Crops’ technology platform.
Engineering complex traits at scale
While traditional breeding has delivered major gains in the past decades, engineering complex traits remains slow, expensive, and difficult to predict. As climate volatility increases, input costs fluctuate, and regulatory shifts enable the wider adoption of gene editing, crop developers are under growing pressure to deliver more predictable performance in less time.
Rainbow Crops’ proprietary Trait Foundry™ platform integrates artificial intelligence, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding, and automated phenotyping to systematically identify, generate, and evaluate combinations of genetic variants underlying complex agronomic traits such as yield or stress resilience.
By combining multiplex genome editing with breeding, the platform creates populations of plants with rationally designed genetic diversity, enabling the efficient exploration and selection of multi-gene trait architectures at scale. Proof of concept has been obtained in corn.
“This investment allows us to accelerate the transition from early validation to systematic deployment of our platform,” said Giacomo Bastianelli, CEO and Co-founder of Rainbow Crops. “Our goal is to accelerate complex trait engineering and make it accessible to partners globally.”
“This round signals strong external validation and positions Rainbow Crops as an emerging category leader in AI-driven, multiplex genome engineering,” added Bastianelli. “We are now focused on innovative partnerships and on delivering real-world impact in the field.”
Edoardo Bianchi, Project Manager at LIFTT, said, “Rainbow Crops is a compelling example of breakthrough innovation in agritech – a category-defining platform that integrates AI, genome editing, and real-world validation to address critical crop breeding challenges. At LIFTT, we are proud to support and invest in such a visionary project.”
The investors were attracted by Rainbow Crops’ potential to significantly accelerate the development of climate-resilient and high-performing crop varieties.
This is underpinned by early field validation in major crops such as corn, a growing proprietary data advantage, and strong validation through engagement with leading seed companies, backing from the Gates Foundation, and access to VIB’s scientific expertise and research infrastructure.
