Green pesticides land $10m

Apparently, in the US of A, it’s rather common practice to put some weird additive in the beer to turn it green on St Patrick’s Day. Greenbang wonders why anyone would do such a thing to beer unless it was a punishment or it had gone radioactive, but there you go. Just don’t get her started on the French habit of adding lemonade and grenadine to beer. Shudder.

But to return to the point: Greenbang thought that putting in some food colouring a la Saint Paddy’s was the only viable way of turning pesticides green, but apparently not.

Marrone Organic Innovations makes organic pesticides for gardens and agriculture (its product goes by the excellent name of Nature’s Avenger)

Marrone Organic Innovations, no less, has scored $10m in VC funding for its work in just such an area, with a further $1m expected later this month.

Among the investor were Stuart Mill Venture Partners, who led the round, Contrarian Group and existing investors “One Earth Capital, Saffron Hill Ventures, Clean Pacific Ventures, Wavepoint Ventures and prominent local angel investors.”

Here’s where the investment will go, according to Marrone:

The financing will enable MOI to fund the development and commercialisation of its pipeline of more than six natural pest management products. While building the commercial side of the company, MOI will continue its discovery of natural products for controlling weeds, plant parasitic nematodes and insects.