Cultivar STL, a St. Louis-based agtech initiative, has launched the Core Facilities Access Fund to strengthen ties between the city's innovation ecosystem and emerging startups from Latin America. The fund will grant between $2,000 and $20,000 to selected companies, enabling them to conduct research and development at the renowned Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, one of the leading plant science institutions in the United States.

The initiative aims to position St. Louis as a global agtech hub, with the fund serving as a bridge between the Midwest and Latin American regions rich in agricultural potential. Isabel Acevedo, manager of technology-based economic development at BioSTL, emphasized the strategic importance of giving international startups access to local innovation infrastructure. "The idea behind the fund is to build a pipeline of companies by giving them access to one of our biggest assets in the region," she noted.

Startups supported by the fund will gain access to Danforth's extensive facilities, including phenotyping platforms, plant transformation labs, advanced bio-imaging, data science tools, and bioanalytical chemistry labs. These resources are crucial for testing, validating, and refining new agricultural technologies focused on sustainability, productivity, and climate resilience.

The fund has already made its first investments. APOLO Biotech from Argentina, a company leveraging RNA-based tools to boost plant immunity, and Innovaciones Circulares from Costa Rica, which develops reactors to recover fertilizer from swine farm waste, were selected as inaugural recipients. Both startups exemplify the type of science-driven, impact-oriented innovation that Cultivar STL seeks to promote.

Stephanie Regagnon, Executive Director of The Yield Lab Institute, a non-profit advancing global food and ag innovation, expressed optimism about the fund's long-term impact: "This program not only supports high-potential startups, but also strengthens St. Louis' role in shaping the future of agriculture through global collaboration."

As U.S. agriculture looks to expand international partnerships and promote scalable solutions, initiatives like this reflect a growing commitment to cross-border innovation, regional economic development, and sustainable agriculture. For Latin American startups, the opportunity to work within a premier research ecosystem like Danforth could accelerate market access, investor interest, and technology refinement - benefiting both continents in the process.