Aphea Bio

Start-ups & scale-ups
Life Sciences & Care
Portfolio Life Sciences & Care
Life sciences & care

Our ambition is to make an impact on the evolution towards sustainable agriculture. We are excited to move to the next important phase and bring our products to the market.
Isabel Vercauteren and Steven Vandenabeele, CEO and CTO at Aphea.Bio

Using micro-organisms in agriculture

Aphea.Bio was founded in 2017 as a spin-off of VIB, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology. The company develops biological products for the agricultural market based on naturally occurring micro-organisms. The focus is on sustainable solutions to increase crop yields and to improve protection against certain fungal diseases.

Since its launch, Aphea.Bio has built a high-throughput technological screening platform to isolate, identify and test new micro-organisms. In addition, the company has built an extensive portfolio of prototype products that have already been validated in wheat and maize fields in several locations across Europe.

Partners in ambition at Aphea.Bio

PMV engaged from the start as one of the investors in Aphea.Bio. The agtech company then raised a start-up budget of 9 million euros through a successful financing A round and an R&D project from the Innovation and Enterprise Agency (VLAIO). In the first phase of the financing B round, led by Astanor Ventures, another 14 million euros was raised in November 2020.

This budget was increased twice in 2021 by the entry of additional investors including the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF).