Foray grows molecules, materials, and seeds with an advanced plant cell culture platform that eliminates the need for conventional harvesting.
Foray Bioscience, a startup sowing the seeds for plantless plant products, today announced it has raised $3 million in seed funding, led by ReGen Ventures. Additional investors include The Engine Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Understorey Ventures, Superorganism, and others. The seed capital follows a pre-seed round and brings the company’s total funding to $3.875 million. Foray will deploy the funds to expand its predictive plant cell culture platform, launch product development engagements with select partners, and expand its Boston-based team.
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Foray Team (Photo: Business Wire)
Life on Earth is only as secure as our global plant populations. Plants play a crucial role in ecosystem stabilization, carbon storage, and climate management, but today, nearly 40% of assessed plant species are under threat of extinction. The world lost more than 16 million acres of forest in 2022—an area larger than West Virginia. Vital plant populations are strained by the growing pressures of human demands, climate-related stresses, and increasing prevalence of pests and diseases. New tools and technologies are needed to ensure continued access to critical plant-sourced goods while replenishing these valuable natural resources.
Foray’s mission is to unlock biomanufacturing for plant-based industries for the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems. The company’s novel technology uses plant cells cultivated outside of the plant to produce a variety of goods more efficiently: from molecules, to materials, and even seeds.
“We believe plant cell culture is a critical and underutilized tool for plant conservation, restoration, and production. With Foray’s technology, our goal is to make biomanufacturing accessible across species and applications by significantly reducing the barriers to entry,” said Dr. Ashley Beckwith, founder and CEO of Foray. “Our platform is powered by a first-of-a-kind predictive database and advanced optimization strategies that will improve success rates, shorten development timelines and make plant cell culture accessible to the 99% of species that remain largely unexplored in biomanufacturing today.”
Added Parker Hughes, Principal at ReGen Ventures and Foray Board member, “Foray is reimagining the manufacturing of plant products. The company’s versatile approach will build much-needed resiliency into our plant supply chains and solve for persistent seed deficits in the reforestation sector. We’re thrilled to support such an innovative technology and team, particularly as environmental preservation becomes increasingly urgent.”
Dr. Beckwith founded Foray after developing foundational approaches in plant-based materials during her PhD at MIT and scholarship at Draper Laboratory. Foray recently appointed two members to its leadership team: Nico Hawley-Weld as Head of Research & Development, and Alex Grant as Head of Operations. Earlier this spring, Foray welcomed a Principal Scientist for Machine Learning and Computational Biology, positioning itself to expand its platform capabilities.
For more information on Foray or to inquire about partnership opportunities in plant-based biomanufacturing, cell line development, seed production, and conservation, visit www.foraybio.com.
About Foray Bioscience
Foray deploys plant-based biomanufacturing to protect and restore natural ecosystems. The company’s database-driven platform makes plant cell culture accessible across applications, delivering harvest-free molecules, materials, and seeds. Foray grows bio-better, plant-based products at up to 100x production speeds, fostering supply chain resilience and enduring access to critical resources. For more information, visit www.foraybio.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.
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Kerry Walker
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