Micropep, an ag-biotech company developing biological micropeptide-based solutions for agriculture, announces the completion of an additional €8.75 million tranche in their Series A financing, bringing the total round to €17.25 million.

Based in Toulouse, France’s center for agtech development, Micropep has developed a unique technological platform that makes it possible to precisely regulate a plant’s gene expression, without altering its DNA, by the exogenous application of micropeptides, a family of proteins naturally produced by plants to respond to stress and regulate their development.

The new round of financing will fuel Micropep’s expansion to the United States. Fall Line Capital led this new funding in addition to existing investors, Supernova Invest, Sofinnova Partners, FMC Ventures and IRDI/SORIDEC.

The new investment also marks the first step towards the commercialization of Micropep’s products. Micropep is using this funding to accelerate the development phase of its first micropeptide candidates in the United States and will build a locally-recruited team to deploy its solutions.

Thomas Laurent, co-founder and CEO of Micropep, said Fall Line Capital’s experience in both farm and tech investments will help accelerate the development of Micropep’s first micropeptide candidates for the U.S. market.

“Like everywhere else in the world, U.S. farmers will need all the tools they can access to continue to control resistant weeds and pathogens while mitigating the effects of climate change on their crops,” said Laurent. “Micropep is building for them a revolutionary toolbox of micropeptide-based solutions to first control resistant weeds and diseases. Our unique approach could open new frontiers in crop protection the same way RNA technology did with vaccines.”