Cytotrait, a biotechnology spinout from The University of Manchester focused on developing novel traits for food and agriculture, has raised £3 million in a seed round led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Northern Universities Ventures Fund. The funding will enable Cytotrait to build on early data from its Mutant Organelle Selection System (MOSS) technology and initiate development programmes exploring enhanced traits in major crop species.
MOSS is designed to address challenges in crop engineering by delivering genes and gene edits into chloroplasts and mitochondria. By rapidly achieving homoplasmy, the approach ensures the desired genetic changes are engineered across every organelle in a plant cell, enabling crop characteristics to be engineered with localised and high-level expression, reduced transgene phytotoxicity, easier backcrossing and trait stacking, efficient containment and a simpler regulatory pathway.
Using the funding, Cytotrait will launch research programmes targeting wheat, maize, potato and canola in European and North American markets. These programmes will explore potential applications including improved yield and resilience, the introduction of new food traits, and the potential for improved carbon sequestration to support more sustainable agricultural practices.
Cytotrait previously received £498,000 from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) to develop MOSS for hybrid seed production in wheat. It was spun out with support from the University of Manchester Innovation Factory and recently completed NG Studios, Northern Gritstone’s venture building programme for deeptech spinouts.
Food security and sustainability are two of our most pressing global challenges, and issues that we must be prepared to face today to ensure we are ready to meet the needs of tomorrow. We developed MOSS with those challenges in mind – a unique crop engineering solution capable of streamlining regulatory pathways and generating crops with new, enhanced, and more carbon-conscious traits. Thank you to our investors, whose support reaffirms our belief in the potential of MOSS to bring about a new frontier in crop technology.
Cytotrait is a prime example of the world-class innovation from the North of England’s universities and the ambitious founders and teams we see on our venture building program, NG Studios. Northern Gritstone is very pleased to be working with Dr Ji and the team and look forward to positive results from this first tranche of new development programmes.
MOSS is truly a breakthrough in the field of crop technology, allowing us to precisely engineer characteristics that can not only enhance yield and resilience, but also help to drive a more sustainable future for modern agriculture. We’re extremely proud of everything our team has already accomplished, and thankful to our investors, whose support will enable us to expand our pipeline and explore the applications of MOSS in some of the world’s major crop types.
UKI2S invests in companies developing novel engineering biology solutions to tackle large, global challenges. We are delighted to welcome Cytotrait to our growing agritech portfolio, recognising the strength of its platform technology, which has the potential to unlock high-value trait expression at levels significantly beyond what is achievable through conventional nuclear genome engineering.
