6. Where will Gates Ag One be located?
The foundation intends to locate Gates Ag One in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area.
I don't know exactly, but looking at other investments they have made it seems like a big deal. I would expect a lot of companies will want to set up shop nearby to capitalize off the research being done at Gate Ag One. I'd imagine it will definitely accelerate the timeline of 39 north being built out. Quick we need a Westport Metrolink asap.JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑Jan 29, 2020Idk much about the Gates foundation but it seems like they have a go big or go home mentality. Anyone got an idea what may be expected? Wild speculation is encouraged!
I agree totally with your comment. The residual impact will be huge. I hope they don't select BRDG park. It would be great for them to build on Kummer's property in Creve Coeur. Tear down the old HBE Building and build there. Lots of land there. Question is......would Fred Kummer give it up at a fair price?goat314 wrote: ↑Jan 29, 2020I would love to see this at Cortex, but I'd imagine it will at 39 North. Either way I'm sure we will see a huge amount of investment come to the area associated with this.
You've taking the info we have and boosted it to the moon.....Gates Foundation has billions of dollars, they usually find someone and pay them for the work, so Gates Ag One could just be 5 admin roles managing contracts with the local firms that are already working on this. Idk why they would come in the market and try to reinvent something when there are 1000s of scientist based here working on the same things.arch city wrote: ↑Jan 30, 2020I agree totally with your comment. The residual impact will be huge. I hope they don't select BRDG park. It would be great for them to build on Kummer's property in Creve Coeur. Tear down the old HBE Building and build there. Lots of land there. Question is......would Fred Kummer give it up at a fair price?goat314 wrote: ↑Jan 29, 2020I would love to see this at Cortex, but I'd imagine it will at 39 North. Either way I'm sure we will see a huge amount of investment come to the area associated with this.
Gates Ag One will collaborate with a diverse community of regional and international public- and private sector partners, as well as interested governments, to enable the advancement of resilient, yield enhancing seeds and traits globally
"You've taking (taken) the info we have and boosted it to the moon....."dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑Jan 30, 2020You've taking the info we have and boosted it to the moon.....Gates Foundation has billions of dollars, they usually find someone and pay them for the work, so Gates Ag One could just be 5 admin roles managing contracts with the local firms that are already working on this. Idk why they would come in the market and try to reinvent something when there are 1000s of scientist based here working on the same things.arch city wrote: ↑Jan 30, 2020I agree totally with your comment. The residual impact will be huge. I hope they don't select BRDG park. It would be great for them to build on Kummer's property in Creve Coeur. Tear down the old HBE Building and build there. Lots of land there. Question is......would Fred Kummer give it up at a fair price?goat314 wrote: ↑Jan 29, 2020I would love to see this at Cortex, but I'd imagine it will at 39 North. Either way I'm sure we will see a huge amount of investment come to the area associated with this.
From the press release-
Gates Ag One will collaborate with a diverse community of regional and international public- and private sector partners, as well as interested governments, to enable the advancement of resilient, yield enhancing seeds and traits globally
Source: GRAIN: “Gates Ag One”: one more push to get farmers into high tech"It seems that Gates is impatient with the speed of existing institutes and initiatives. ‘We didn’t think that research was flowing down to the crops that matter most to smallholder farmers in a time-frame that could reach them (…) We needed to accelerate the access to the kinds of products and services that low-income people and smallholder farmers need’, claims Rodger Voorhies, one of the lead people in the Gates Foundation. They looked at a number of other strategies, such as increasing funding to existing institutions, but decided the best use of Gates money was to set up a new non-profit entity tied to the Gates Foundation instead.
It’s not very clear what this new organisation will exactly do. But the general line of work is clear: get the products from the labs into the fields, faster and more massive than before. The objective seems to be to identify ‘promising’ scientific discoveries and get those as quickly as possible to the point of commercialization. Gene editing (or CRISPR), something that Gates has been pushing for several years now, looks like one such candidate. Gates used to fund others to get this done, but impatient with lack of progress, he now wants to do it himself, it seems."
When Gates started AGRA in Africa 15 years ago, it was because he didn’t see the Green Revolution happening there as it had happened in other continents. Bill Gates´ enthusiasm for GMO’s and chemical fertilizers is well known – so the ‘scientific breakthroughs’ he is again so eager to get into the farmers´ fields will surely be transgenic and responsive to chemicals. The fact that the new centre will be based in St. Louis, Missouri USA, home of Monsanto and other GMO and pesticide giants, is not a coincidence. Part of the AGRA strategy was to create an Africa-wide network of local ‘agrodealers’ to get agrochemicals, fertilizers and hybrid seeds to the farmers. But it’s not going fast and far enough for Gates. Apparently, we need to push harder and faster.
On LinkedIn BMGF lists 1759 employees and 1366 are located in Seattle. I doubt this leads to >100 jobs. It's fantastic that they chose St. Louis. But very unlikely they want to build their own home. If they could be anchor tenant at CORTEX I think that would be the perfect outcome.arch city wrote: ↑Jan 31, 2020This is a really big deal. To minimize the impact this will have is folly. This is a GLOBAL initiative that will have global reach, impact and implications. The impact of recruitment and the global stature benefit to St. Louis are enormous. BMGF has a big building in Seattle, but they chose St. Louis. I think this signals, to me, they are planning something more than a "back-office" operation in St. Louis.
This.sc4mayor wrote: ↑Jan 31, 2020It’s a non-profit research institute that sounds (so far) complementary to something like the Danforth Center.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s decision to headquarter its new agriculture nonprofit in St. Louis is more validation of the region’s growing agtech sector, local officials said. It’s not only another victory for the agtech sector, they said, but also a move they think can help attract more companies and investment to St. Louis.
“At BioSTL, we travel around the world telling the St. Louis story and selling the strengths of St. Louis, especially in ag and food, and share the map of assets we have in this ecosystem," said Donn Rubin, president and CEO of BioSTL. “Having a globally renowned group like the Gates Foundation involved and showing a vote of confidence in our ecosystem certainly provides a boost to the story.” The Seattle-based Gates Foundation said in a statement last week that it plans to locate its new nonprofit, Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations, in the greater St. Louis area. The nonprofit will be called Gates Ag One and will focus its research on helping “smallholder farmers adapt to climate change and make food production in low- and middle-income countries more productive, resilient, and sustainable," officials said.
The philanthropic organization’s choice of St. Louis follows a decision last year by Bunge Ltd., an agriculture, food and ingredients company, to relocate its global headquarters to Chesterfield. Both moves come as entrepreneurship and economic development groups over the past two decades have sought to boost St. Louis’ agtech sector around key industry assets. One example is 39 North, a 600-acre innovation district unveiled in 2016 that surrounds the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, BRDG Park, Helix Center Biotech Incubator, Yield Lab and Bayer's campus.
“From a 39 North perspective, it’s fantastic because it’s another asset and it completely dovetails with the work that the Danforth Center does and then (for) all the entrepreneurs we support, it’s just another opportunity for them to get funding,” said Janet Wilding, vice president of 39 North and major projects at the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. Jim Carrington, president of the Danforth Center, said in a statement that he sees synergies between the Gates Foundation’s new nonprofit and the center. “Our understanding is that they seek to accelerate translation of the kind of research we do at the Danforth, and facilitate delivery to the marketplace in developing countries. Gates Ag One addresses a significant gap, and we look forward to working with them in the future,” said Carrington.
The Gates Foundation has not released additional details on Gates Ag One beyond its Jan. 21 statement. The organization said in an email Thursday it is “still in the early planning stages, and we look forward to sharing additional details in the future." Gates Ag One will be led by Joe Cornelius, a director with the Gates Foundation’s global growth and opportunity division. The foundation said it has not yet determined additional staffing for the new project. A specific location for the new nonprofit also has not been identified. Wilding of 39 North said she’s unaware of where Gates Ag One might establish its local headquarters, but said the innovation district would be apt. “That would be ideal. We would love to have them,” she said. The Gates Foundation did say in its statement that Gates Ag One “will collaborate with a diverse community of regional and international public- and private-sector partners, as well as interested governments.” Rubin said the possibility of agriculture leaders spending time in St. Louis will help bolster the agtech ecosystem and broaden its network.
“This is good news all around. The only question is how good," he said.
The successful fundraising makes Lewis & Clark, founded in 2016, a sizable player among funds investing in agriculture and food technology. And it’s in a space where investors see plenty of opportunity: According to the National Venture Capital Association’s Pitchbook report, ag-tech investments grew to $3.2 billion last year from $511 million in 2015.
For Lewis & Clark, the messy middle means everything from software for farmers and feed mills to food-processing innovations. It just invested $5 million in Sinnovatek, a Raleigh, North Carolina, company with packaging technology that preserves nutrients.
The middle of the country is a good place to manage the fund, Taiclet said. For investors trying to understand innovation, St. Louis’ nation-leading concentration of plant-science Ph.D.s is an advantage. “The broader St. Louis ecosystem around plant science and agriculture is a huge plus for us,” Taiclet said. “We get a lot of companies naturally coming to St. Louis that are Midwest-oriented.”
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The presence of a large growth-stage venture fund should be a plus for St. Louis, which has been working for 20 years to attract more agricultural startups. “We have talent, we have proximity to farmers and we have physical facilities,” said Donn Rubin, chief executive of industry group BioSTL. “The financial capability is a critical piece of this mosaic as well.”
“Having a large venture capital fund like Lewis & Clark based here helps complete that innovation economy story,” Rubin added. “It reinforces St. Louis’ standing on the global map of where ag technology innovation is happening and where the support systems are to make a company successful.”
