Biotechnology Innovations in Plant Science, Agriculture and Food

VIB is one of the world’s premier life science institutes that strives to turn its discoveries into new agricultural, medical and industrial applications and businesses. Biotope, an initiative of VIB, is an incubator program that is searching for agrifood biotech innovations outside of VIB, that are ideally ready to spin-out or have spun out already and are seeking state of the art research facilities, scientific, IP and business support and early preseed funding. 

Research Interests:

• Innovations in plant biotechnology towards beneficial agronomic traits such as increased productivity and pest resistance, via e.g. breeding or genome editing approaches
• Development of novel types of active ingredients for crop protection (e.g. peptides, nucleic acids, carriers…)
• Agriculture, including regenerative agriculture and research relating to soil microbiome and soil health
• Biotechnologies that improve the health and wellbeing of humans or farm animals
• Sustainable biopesticides, biostimulants and biocontrol solutions
• Molecular farming for production of products such as supplements and ingredients
• The production of alternative proteins/ingredients/high value compounds, which may be cell-, plant- or mycelium-based, or via precision fermentation 

Out of Scope:

• Opportunities that are solely related to IT or robotics
• Marketplace technologies
• Business-to-consumer products

Developmental Stages of Interest:

Biotope by VIB is open to a range of developmental stages, however the research should ideally have proof of concept that can be visually proven. Later stage opportunities are also of interest, provided they are not yet fully commercialised.

Submission Information

Submission of one page, 200-300 word briefs are encouraged, along with any optional supplementary information e.g. relevant publications. In submitting to this campaign, you confirm that your submission contains only non-confidential information. 

Opportunity for Collaboration

Opportunities of interest will be invited to apply to Biotope by VIB’s incubator program as 360° validation of your biotech startup idea. The most successful teams become part of our community, offering significant pre-seed funding and access to a stimulating ecosystem with high-tech facilities, one-on-one support, and a network of experts, mentors, and investors. Applicants must be open to the idea of relocating to Belgium or a nearby location in Europe, but this is not mandatory.