March 2, 2022
Susterco, a newly formed BioGenerator Ventures company focused on advancing sustainable agriculture solutions, has acquired an exclusive license to commercialize all uses of Impossible Sensing's technologies for agriculture, forestry, and food production.
“Susterco identifies early-stage technologies and links them to relevant commercial product concepts. This collaboration is an example of our team’s deep strength to address technical risks, advance IP/FTO strategies, access strategic markets, enable funding, and provide industry expert leadership to create investable opportunities,” said Luis Copeland, Entrepreneur in Residence at BioGenerator and CEO for Susterco. “As we advance more partnerships like the one with Impossible Sensing, this engine will offer more transparent, sustainable, adaptive and collaborative solutions to catalyze the agricultural, nutrition, and food value-chain transformation.”
This collaboration reinforces the BioGenerator model of aligning experienced executives with specific domain expertise to innovative technologies. Programming within the BioGenerator Labs is designed to help technology startups develop competitive applications for non-dilutive commercial grants with a particular focus on federal funding opportunities and has thus far helped St. Louis startups secure more than $100M in federal commercialization grants.
Dr. Martha Schlicher, a BioGenerator AgTech EIR and co-founder of Susterco said, “Impossible Sensing is using advanced technology to look for evidence of ‘life on Mars’ with soil carbon measurements, and Susterco immediately identified applicability to important economic challenges in agriculture. The BioGenerator model allowed us to make the cross-sector connection and to act upon it quickly through the agricultural talent present in Susterco.”
Susterco brought together soil health industry experts to advance Impossible Sensing’s commercial product concepts for agriculture and developed a comprehensive commercialization plan. With the help of BioGenerator and Susterco, Impossible Sensing recently was awarded a $1.6M SBIR Phase II grant by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Together, Impossible Sensing and Susterco will utilize the grant funding to advance and commercially demonstrate that this innovative technology provides accurate, real-time field carbon sequestration data for the carbon credit market.
Susterco strives to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change by transforming the food value chain through the advancement of impactful, innovative technologies. Susterco is a team of veteran agriculture executives with a breadth of experience from early R&D to managing billion-dollar commercial organizations. With deep insights, strong relationships, and demonstrated experience in working collaboratively to advance technologies from the laboratory to commercialization, Susterco aims to bring to market multiple transformative technologies. Learn more at www.susterco.com.
Impossible Sensing develops next-generation optical sensing applications for the most extreme terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments, enhancing the everyday quality of life while pushing back humankind's final frontiers.
Impossible’s innovations search for life and resources on every planet and ocean, helping to decarbonize the world. Learn more at impossiblesensing.com.
BioGenerator, the startup arm of BioSTL, creates and grows innovative St. Louis companies through its two complementary approaches — investing through BioGenerator Ventures and comprehensive startup support through BioGenerator Labs. Visit www.BioGenerator.org for additional information, and follow us on LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/BioGenerator and Twitter @BioGeneratorSTL.
