Hartford Business Journal

4 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 26, 2023 AI Effect With $150M raised, Enko brings artificial intelligence to pesticide development By Harriet Jones Hartford Business Journal Contributor Y ou might not think of agricul- ture as a data-driven industry, but it is. "There's a whole movement in precision agriculture," said Jacque- line Heard, founder and CEO of Mystic-based Enko. Her startup company is at the heart of that movement, applying artificial intelligence to developing a new generation of pesticides that she hopes will meet the tough challenges facing farmers who must feed a growing world population. "Instead of constantly improving, it looks like some of the largest crops in the world, the yields are stagnating," said Heard. "Farmers are losing the battle with resistance to different solutions that they have out there today. With climate change, there's more weather variability, which adds additional risk to growers." That's where her potential herbi- cides, fungicides and insecticides come in. "One of the most critical things for more sustainable agriculture is to really optimize productivity on every acre that's currently being farmed. There's just not a lot of arable land left," she said. Enko was founded in 2017 in Woburn, Mass., but moved to the Mystic facility — a former Pfizer and then Monsanto property — in 2021, attracted by tailor-made greenhouse space to test its growing products pipeline. It bought the property for $6 million, town records show. Enko has been through two major fundraising rounds, its Series B led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foun- dation, and then a Series C, which closed at $80 million last year, led by strategic partner Nufarm and including funding from Connecticut Innovations, the state's quasi-public venture capital arm. That connection eventually also brought them a new chief financial officer, David Wurzer, who retired from CI last year and subsequently joined Enko. Overall, the company has raised $150 million in four funding rounds Startups, Technology & Innovation David Wurzer AT A GLANCE Company: Enko Chem Industry: Agrichemicals Top Executive: Jacqueline Heard, CEO HQ: 62 Maritime Dr., Mystic Website: www.enkochem.com Contact: info@enko.ag Enko founder and CEO Jacqueline Heard in the pesticide development company's Mystic greenhouse. HBJ PHOTO | HARRIET JONES since its inception. "People constantly ask me what should you invest in, and I say, 'food, water, and infectious disease,'" Wurzer said. "In each of those areas there has to be significant change from a technology standpoint for us to meet the needs of two billion more people on this planet by 2050." He said joining just as Enko put the equivalent of three years' funding in the bank has allowed him to concen- trate on execution. "One of the things we're really focused on right now is building that next layer of management," he explained. The company's staff has grown from 30 people before the latest funding round to 44 now, with the intent that it will hit 50 by the end of the year. Those roles include data scientists and software engineers in addition to biologists. Wurzer said the currently small leadership team needs help to manage that expansion. Corporate governance is another focus. "The board has evolved, and will continue to evolve, from an inves- tor-driven board to a board that is more industry and strategic as well," he said. Wurzer is an industry veteran, having taken two companies public, including Curagen in the 1990s. He won't yet say if that's in Enko's future, responding only that the company can potentially exit in the next several years through either private or public markets. Artificial intelligence Developing a new pesticide is a lengthy and highly regulated process, analogous to developing a new drug for human health care. Historically, it's taken about 13 years to bring a novel compound to market. Heard said she believes her AI-driven model can cut that to between eight to 10 years. Enko has generated hundreds of crop protection molecules through a technology platform it calls ENKOMPASS. That combines screening of DNA-encoded chem- ical libraries with machine learning and structure-based design to find new, better-performing and more targeted chemistries. "It's a numbers game," she explained. "It's really fishing out of a universe of amazing chemical tools, the things that will actually work the best for your context." That's where the freezer comes in. "Ten billion compounds are housed in this freezer, and they fit on a little tray," said Peter Stchur, vice pres- ident of operations, slapping his hand onto an appliance that wouldn't look out of place in your kitchen. "This is the top of the pipeline for us." "If we were looking for a new insecticide," said Stchur, "we want something that is going to, let's say,

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