UK-based SugaROx secures £1 million investment to accelerate field testing biostimulant research
SugaROx, a UK-based venture leading the development of precision biostimulants, has announced a £400,000 strategic investment from a global player in the fertiliser industry, The Mosaic Company, as part of a £1 million seed round extension.
Existing backers, including UK-based angel investors and sustainable growth-focused investment funds Future Planet Capital and Regenerate Ventures, contributed the remaining £600,000.
Biostimulants are one of the fastest growing crop input sectors, with an estimated 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The £1 million extension follows a £2.4 million grant awarded from the UK’s national innovation agency, Innovate UK, to upscale manufacturing of SugaROx’s first active ingredient Trehalose-6-Phosphate (T6P).
SugaROx’s T6P biostimulant boosts the yields and resilience of crops by inhibiting SnRK1, an enzyme that signals energy scarcity in the plant. Safety tests completed in early 2024 confirmed a promising regulatory outlook for the proprietary T6P and led potential go-to-market partners to request samples for field trials.
SugaROx is working to launch its T6P wheat biostimulant in the UK market in 2027 and in the EU in 2028. This year the venture launched trials in soybean and maize with a view to enter the US and Brazilian markets shortly after.
Mark Robbins, chief executive officer of SugaROx said: “In response to increasing demand for product samples, we decided to accelerate our manufacturing timeline, fast‑tracking the shift from in‑house lab production to a pilot facility. The Innovate UK grant and additional investment allows us to do that”.
“Our existing investors were quick to subscribe to the seed round extension, which we are delighted to complete with Mosaic as a strategic partner. We have the ambition to transform the biostimulants industry with science-based solutions – something that is only achievable in collaboration with other players”.
Explaining the benefits of Mosaic’s investment, Dr Cara Griffiths chief technical officer and co-founder at SugaROx, added: “With Mosaic we gain access to an established network of trial sites for validation of our first product in the US at scale. Mosaic will also provide us with access to TruResponse®, a digital platform to visualise field results, which will be extremely valuable for our research.”
About SugaROx
SugaROx is a UK-based agri-tech company at the forefront of crop innovation, developing biostimulant technologies that improve yields and resilience to climate change, whilst reducing the carbon footprint of food production. As a spin-out from Rothamsted Research and the University of Oxford, SugaROx brings together world-class science in plants science and organic chemistry to develop solutions to help farmers meet the increasing demands of global food production.