Government · 5 deals
Every published round GRDC took part in, and every parcel of existing shares it bought off another holder. Deals we hold but haven't published yet are not counted.
| Company | Stage | Announced | Amount | Role | Alongside | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wildfire Energy | Grant | 12 Jan 2021 | $100k | Participant | Cotton Research and Development Corporation, @AuManufacturing | |
| Hydgene | Grant | 12 Jan 2021 | $100k | Participant | Cotton Research and Development Corporation, @AuManufacturing | |
| Wildfire Energy | Grant | 28 Oct 2021 | $1m | Participant | Wholesale Investor, Cotton Research and Development Corporation | |
| PlasmaLeap Technologies | Series A | 4 Aug 2026 | $28m | Participant | RenewEconomy (Thu 13 Aug 2026), RenewEconomy (Thu 13 Aug 2026), SmartCompany (Fri 6 Mar 2026), SmartCompany (Wed 4 Mar 2026), Artesian VC portfolio, Artesian VC portfolio, Investible portfolio | |
| PlasmaLeap Technologies | Series A | 2026 | ~$30m | Participant | GrainCorp Ventures (Fri 13 Mar 2026), GrainCorp Ventures (Fri 13 Mar 2026), Startup Daily (Fri 6 Mar 2026), Startup Daily (Tue 3 Mar 2026) |
Everyone GRDC has named to a program in published coverage. A place in a program is not a raise: the cheque is the figure recorded with the place, which is the program's standard terms where we hold them, and a blank is one we don't.
Companies GRDC has backed in a published round, and companies whose existing shares it bought off another holder.
| Company | What it does | First invested | Rounds | Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hydgene | Biomass to hydrogen technology for producing fertilisers and fuels | 12 Jan 2021, Grant | 1 | 0 |
| PlasmaLeap Technologies | Modular plants for local production of fertilisers and fuels | 2026, Series A | 2 | 0 |
| Wildfire Energy | Waste gasification plants producing hydrogen, power and biofuels | 12 Jan 2021, Grant | 2 | 0 |
This is a stake in the fund itself, money that the fund's manager invests, not a stake in the fund manager.
| Fund | Manager | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| GrainInnovate | Artesian VC | Startup News (WA), Beef Central / Grain Central, Startup Daily |
Companies GRDC has backed that another company then bought. An exit for the holding, not a deal GRDC did.
| Name | Role | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Fernando Felquer | Head of Business Development | GrainCorp Ventures, Startup News (WA), Startup Daily |
| Francis Ogbonnaya | Senior Manager Genetic Technologies Pulses | FaBA |
| John Woods | Chair | Cotton Research and Development Corporation, Beef Central / Grain Central, Startup Daily |
| Roop Judge | Manager Business Development & Commercialisation – West | Cotton Research and Development Corporation |
Stories naming GRDC. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Uniseed announces portfolio company BioScout's A$6.75 million round co-led by Demea Sustainable Investment and Astanor to scale its crop disease sensor network internationally.
GrainCorp's venture arm has joined a Series A backing PlasmaLeap Technologies, an Australian maker of modular on-farm fertiliser systems, which will use the funds for its first hubs in NSW and Tasmania.
Artesian's write-up of its first Yield summit in Melbourne, where agrifood leaders discussed AI, biologicals, robotics, agri-energy and biosecurity, and how RDCs, investors and corporates can together speed Australian agricultural innovation.
FaBA and UQ launch their largest research project, a $5.6m effort with oat company My PlantCo to develop new oat-based foods, with GRDC committing over $720,000 to the company's project.
CRDC announces the launch of Agricultural Innovation Australia's Environmental Accounting Platform, giving farm sectors a standardised way to measure carbon; nine rural research and development corporations invested in building it.
Perth food-tech company Whole. took out the Shiseido Award at a Japanese space-ideas contest for its WINX ingredient-processing technology, and the piece recalls its 2023 seed round backed by Artesian and GRDC.
ZoomAgri raised a $6 million Series A led by GrainCorp with GrainInnovate and SP Ventures, to expand its AI grain inspection technology geographically and into new commodities.
GrainCorp co-leads a nine million dollar Series A in ZoomAgri with GrainInnovate, with SP Ventures also participating, funding AI grain quality testing.
Also GrainCorp Ventures
SparkLabs Cultiv8 has picked ten cleantech startups for the first intake of its new accelerator, run from Orange with backing from Cultiv8 Funds Management and several agricultural research bodies.
Whole Green Foods has raised a $1.5 million seed round from GRDC, investing via its GrainInnovate fund, and Artesian, to advance its WINX food processing technology that reduces waste in plant-based ingredient production.
Grains and cotton research bodies GRDC and CRDC announce a $5.5m, five-year partnership with agtech firm Goanna Ag to build a network of weather stations warning growers about hazardous spray conditions.
Senators question CSIRO over email exchanges with plant-based protein maker v2food, probing conflicts between the agency's public research role and its equity stake in the company, with fund investment details aired at the hearing.
Two rural research corporations ran federal-backed innovation challenges, awarding grants totalling nearly $5 million, with four agricultural technology companies advancing to million-dollar proof-of-concept funding.
Nineteen listed companies received federal BRII feasibility-study grants totalling $2.27 million across five government agency challenge themes, including turning farm crops into renewable hydrogen.
Agtech firm Laconik has closed another $250,000 round via GrainInnovate and SproutX, plus a $19,000 WA entrepreneurship grant, while trialling its fertiliser recommendation technology across WA farms with a Curtin PhD graduate interning.
Investors at the evokeAG conference urged Australian agtech founders to pursue global markets. GRDC and Artesian committed $50 million to the GrainInnovate fund, and Austrade launched its Agriculture 4.0 connecting platform.
Artesian Venture Partners and the Grains Research and Development Corporation have launched GrainInnovate, an agtech fund, with a $25 million GRDC cornerstone commitment toward a $50 million pool backing startups serving Australian grain growers.
FaBA profiles My PlantCo, Mei Yong's venture turning Australian oats into foods like Oat Rice, describing a $5.6 million FaBA project with GRDC co-investment now advancing the Real Oats range toward commercialisation.