Heritable Agriculture Inc., a leader in AI-driven crop improvement spun out of Google X, announced that it has received a $4.98M grant from the Gates Foundation. The funding will support the development of the "Joint AI-driven Smallholder Omics aNalytics" (JASON) project, focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and multiple “omics” technologies to create climate-resilient crops for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The project's purpose is to develop AI-based tools that identify gene targets and climate-adapted germplasm to improve crop resilience against challenging conditions such as drought and heat. This initiative is a critical step in advancing the foundation’s strategic goal of using digital innovation to reduce climate-related yield loss in smallholder agriculture.

"This project will allow us to stand up a cloud-based AI genomics engine, dramatically accelerating the discovery and deployment of climate-resilient germplasm,” said Tim Beissinger, CTO of Heritable Agriculture. “We anticipate cutting conventional breeding cycle time, transforming raw sequence data into high-confidence edit targets."

Beyond a validation of Heritable’s technical capabilities, the grant exemplifies Heritable’s mission to improve the lives of all through agricultural innovation.

"This investment from the Gates Foundation shows strong support for our approach of combining AI, remote sensing, and omics data for global impact,” said Brad Zamft, CEO of Heritable Agriculture. “A project like JASON represents over a decade of hard work from our team members, shaping and sculpting a vision of an agricultural company that serves the global community, does good for the world, and builds a scalable business, all at the same time. I am so proud and excited to be working with the Gates Foundation on such an important and impactful project."