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French Plant Breeding Firm Meiogenix Raises $13M in Series A Round

NEW YORK — French plant breeding firm Meiogenix said on Tuesday that it has raised $13 million in a Series A financing round.

The round was led by Sofinnova Partners and included Genoa Ventures, Bpifrance, Casdin Capital, and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Meiogenix is developing gene- and chromosome-editing technologies designed to accelerate plant biodiversity by mixing parental genomes during reproduction. This approach, the company said, can speed plant variety selection, reverse the loss of biodiversity from systematic crop selection, and improve agronomic traits such as taste and nutritional content.

"The Series A funding will provide capital for our implementation in the United States and further product development," Meiogenix CEO Luc Mathis said in a statement.

In early 2020, Meiogenix began working with Bayer to develop plant breeding and genome editing technologies. Around the same time, the company partnered with Cornell to improve maize.

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