Viridian Seeds

Viridian Seeds is accelerating agricultural sustainability by developing smart “super-legumes” and crops through artificial intelligence-guided, multiple-gene discovery platform (MGDP) and gene editing.

Today’s agriculture and food systems are among the largest contributors to environmental degradation, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions, making the sector a critical focus in the fight against climate change. Viridian Seeds was co-founded by Dr Manash Chatterjee on the conviction that crop plants can be redesigned to address these challenges, helping build more sustainable food systems and accelerate the transition towards more plant-based diets.

Based in Cambridge, the agricultural biotech company is developing and commercialising a new generation of sustainable protein crops optimised for cultivation across the UK and Europe. Using its proprietary AI-driven multiple-allele discovery (MGDP) platform, Viridian Seeds rapidly identifies genetic variants linked to desirable traits, significantly accelerating the breeding process compared with traditional methods. As a result, its crop varieties are designed to deliver higher yields, increased protein content, richer nutritional value and greater resilience to environmental stresses, while offering a lower carbon alternative to conventional agriculture.

While initially focused on sustainable food crops, their non-GM platform has broader applications across non-food crops, including plant-derived cosmetic ingredients and bio-based industrial materials. Viridian Seeds has already demonstrated the approach in crops such as tomatoes and chickpeas, producing non-GMO varieties designed for easy acceptance by consumers and regulators across international markets.

Having developed the MGDP platform in the Illumina Accelerator, Viridian Seeds has gone on to secure more than £500,000 in grant funding, awards, and accelerator support, while attracting growing interest from seed companies and investors in the UK and internationally. The company has also earned wider industry recognition, being named by BASF in 2024 as one of the agritech companies leading the way on sustainable innovation and winning the EIT Food Seedbed Prize in 2025.

With the platform now proven, Viridian Seeds is moving towards commercialisation through partnerships with seed companies across Europe and beyond. The company is also looking to expand its portfolio of climate-smart traits into new crops and applications, with the ambition of accelerating the development of more resilient, nutritious and sustainable agricultural systems.