12. Pivot Bio

Founders: Karsten Temme (CEO), Alvin Tamsir
Launched: 2011
Headquarters: Berkeley, California
Funding: $630 million
Valuation: $2 billion
Key technologies: Machine learning, nanotechnology, robotics
Industry: Biotech
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 0

Agtech startup Pivot Bio has discovered a dependable and safer way to fertilize crops that could begin to replace synthetic methods.   

Pivot Bio's breakthrough could disrupt the $180 billion synthetic fertilizer market over the next decade and reduce greenhouse gases. It's set to transform how farmers grow their crops — specifically corn, wheat and rice — by replacing harmful, polluting synthetic fertilizers with sustainable-produced nitrogen that can improve yields.

Pivot Bio, based in Berkeley, California, is one of a handful of young innovative companies going after this market. The startup's first commercially available high-tech product in 2019 sold out within six weeks. It came after years of tests in laboratories, greenhouses and on farms by co-founders Karsten Temme and Alvin Tamsir, two PhD student researchers in San Francisco. They've since expanded their product portfolio in 2021 beyond use on cereal crops to wheat and sorghum grains.  

It most recently raised $430 million in 2021 in a Series D deal co-led by its earliest seed investor, Silicon Valley venture firm DCVC, and Singapore fund Temasek. Earlier funding was co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, backed by several high-profile leaders such as Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Marc Benioff. Rockefeller Capital Management is also a repeat investor in the startup.  

In 2022, Pivot Bio expanded production with a new facility in St. Louis and opened a second distribution center, a larger footprint that looks to help to reduce the U.S. reliance on synthetic fertilizers produced in Russia. Pivot Bio also joined AIM for Climate, a joint effort by the U.S. and UAE governments to accelerate R&D in agtech for climate solutions. Pivot Bio committed to investing at least $291 million in product development over the next four years to speed up adoption of environmentally safe fertilizers.