Neocrop raises $2.75M seed to scale high-fibre gene-edited wheat
What's the deal? Neocrop TechnologiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Chilean agricultural biotech company, closed a $2.75 million seed round led by Zentynel, a US-based biotech fund. The round also drew CITESDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Sudlich Capital, Grupo Inder, and Carozzi Ventures.
What's the endgame? The company has approval from Chilean and Argentine authorities to develop Argentina's first gene-edited wheat with high fibre content. The trait boosts fibre five to ten times, which Neocrop says improves nutrition without changing consumption habits.
Gene editing is not transgenic: it makes small adjustments to the plant's DNA rather than introducing an external gene, which speeds up time to market. Neocrop ran field trials in Chile over the 2025/26 season.
Where the money goes: Funds will finance scaling the high-fibre wheat to commercial stage and advance other portfolio projects toward pre-commercial phase. That means faster agronomic and industrial validation with millers, regulatory and intellectual property work, new partnerships, and commercial expansion.
Neocrop has an alliance with Argentine seed firm Buck SemillasDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. After Zentynel joined, it sharpened its commercial model, prioritising developments closer to market and moving from seed companies toward consumer packaged goods via co-development and licensing.
Why it matters to investors: For CITES, the deal marks its first investment in Chile and the first seed-stage bet from its new regional fund, CITES IIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. "Neocrop represents important milestones for CITES and our strategy in the region," said partner José María Rodríguez (translated from Spanish).
Rodríguez added that companies "emerging and developed in the region" show how far Latin America's deep tech ecosystem has evolved. Sudlich Capital, the firm's first backer since the pre-seed stage, made a follow-on investment.
The signal: At $2.75 million, the round sits in the upper percentiles for its stage, a notable mark for a Latin American agri-biotech still proving its product. As cofounder Daniel Noero put it, in ag-biotech an innovation "demonstrates its value when it crosses the lab, the field, regulation, and industry to reach the market" (translated from Spanish).
Read more: lanacion.com.ar
Image credit: Ivan Radic
