By Lindsey Giardino
A lot of innovation happens within the walls of Corteva. A lot happens outside, too.
To tap into these external advancements, the organization launched Corteva Catalyst — an investment and partnership platform designed to bring to market agricultural innovations that align with Corteva’s research and development priorities and add value.
Since its launch in March 2024, Corteva Catalyst has been partnering with entrepreneurs and innovators developing technologies to help growers tackle challenges related to climate, insects, disease and more. The goal is to maintain a continuous pipeline of innovation.
“As a leading ag company, we need to invest in emerging areas that will be important to growers long term,” said Tom Greene, Corteva’s senior director of external investment and head of Catalyst.
Corteva Catalyst complements the company’s internal research and development efforts but recognizes that no single organization can do everything alone. By leveraging venture capital, the company can strategically connect with emerging technologies that align with its innovation goals.
The platform focuses on four strategic verticals: genome editing, biologicals and natural products, technology platforms, and decision science.
Since its inception, Corteva Catalyst has already made several key investments, including in Pairwise, a technology company pioneering gene editing in food and agriculture. The collaboration aims to accelerate the development of advanced gene-editing solutions, benefiting farmers, consumers and the environment.
Corteva is already focused on gene-editing technology, which uses a plant’s natural DNA to make precise enhancements. Through its $25 million equity investment in Pairwise via the Catalyst platform, Corteva seeks to expand the reach and benefits of gene editing across a wide variety of staple and specialty crops.
In the agricultural biologicals sector, Corteva identified peptides as an emerging area after conducting an extensive market analysis. This led to investments in Solasta Bio, which develops environmentally friendly products that meet a global need for new and effective crop protection, and Micropep, a micropeptide crop protection technologies company.
“By partnering with leaders in this field, we can tap into their four or five years of advanced research and accelerate the space, their strong ag position, and their strong discovery platforms,” Greene said.
Corteva Catalyst makes direct investments — even in pre-seed-stage companies — to position itself as a key player in transitioning innovation into market-ready products.
“We’re really good at that transition from innovation into product,” Greene said. “For us, it’s a great way to accelerate in the space and de-risk it by partnering with leaders in the field from an external investment standpoint.”
Greene adds that working with creative and forward-thinking companies is one of the most exciting aspects of Catalyst.
“We need them out there pushing the envelope of innovation, and we need to be able to partner with them on that journey,” he said.
At the same time, Catalyst strengthens Corteva’s position as a desirable partner. The platform is structured to be flexible in its business model, creating win-win-win scenarios for Corteva, founders and venture capitalists. Since Catalyst is both an investment and a partnership platform within research and development, it isn’t limited to equity investments. It can also facilitate strategic collaborations, either independently or alongside equity investments.
Over the next five years, Greene envisions Catalyst building a portfolio of companies that make a tangible impact on Corteva’s research pipeline, bringing the next generation of agricultural technologies to market faster. His hope is that Catalyst will help accelerate the development of early-stage, disruptive technologies that empower farmers to sustainably produce more food and feed the world.