How we began
Invaio’s origins lie in a ‘what if’. What if… we could pioneer approaches to preserve biodiversity by developing natural solutions to protect crops from insects?
It turns out the short answer is… we can
For many years, farmers have tried to control insect populations with broadcast spraying of pesticides. These methods are not always efficient and have had unintended consequences including impacting the safety of farm workers applying them, reducing the diversity of insects in nature, and potentially leaving residues in our food. We believe there’s a better way.
The three big biological ideas on which Invaio was founded are: What if we could control the behavior of insects by modulating their microbiomes? What if we could achieve that control by leveraging the natural defense mechanisms of plants? What if we could precisely deliver molecules that influence insect health by repurposing biological leftovers from cell division? Each idea could drive radical advances in agriculture and health. Together, they had the potential to transform one of the most fundamental aspects of life on earth: how we feed ourselves.
Invaio grew from the Flagship Pioneering ecosystem
Invaio began as a Flagship Pioneering exploration led by Barry Martin, a special agricultural advisor, and Ignacio Martinez, Invaio’s founding CEO and Flagship general partner, in the summer of 2017.
The exploration team began to envision a future in which crop-damaging pests could be rendered harmless with tiny amounts of precisely delivered antimicrobials. As they developed a plan, they made additional breakthroughs. Flagship was building other startups in biomedicine based on a new understanding of exosomes—tiny vesicles that carry proteins, DNA, and RNA between cells. Could the same approach apply to plants which also use exosomes as defense mechanisms against pathogens?
Since then, the Invaio team has been focusing on identifying the right naturally derived bioactives – or cargo – together with the best biological delivery systems in order to treat crops suffering from insects or diseases in a way that is better for crops, better for humans and better for the environment.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $100 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.9 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions.
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