Ana I. Caño-Delgado explains that she has been researching for 20 years how to reduce water consumption in agriculture using natural compounds. “It is a necessity that no one doubts anymore, but it was not like that in the beginning,” recalls the scientist. The result of her work has now left the laboratory in the form of the company Planet Biotech. This is a startup that emerged from the Agrigenomics Research Center (Crag), where both Caño and Andrea Giordano, the other co-founder, are researchers.
The Planet Biotech gestation has not had an easy or quick birth, according to Caño. “In June 2013 we obtained a patent for drought-tolerant crops. We entered several entrepreneurial contests, but I was denied the compatibility of researching and entrepreneurship,” says the co-founder. Things changed in 2016, when the project got two million euros from the European Research Council. “Thanks to this money we recovered the patent and got new ones,” says the entrepreneur. Finally, in July of this year the founding of the company was formalized. “We are the first company to emerge from the Crag, that is why the road has been so long,” says Caño.
“Planet Biotech is a technology-based company that develops biostimulants to combat climate change in agriculture. That is, using natural compounds we help plants better resist drought and high temperatures,” explains the researcher and entrepreneur. The company has already begun to look for investors to finance the next phases that should lead the company to go on the market in 2026.
The startup, which is owned by Crag and La Fundació La Caixa, has been incubated by Cajamar and has been selected by the Ship2B business accelerator. The headquarters are located in the Research Park of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, from where the team of six people that comprise it works.
