Brian Gordon | The News & Observer
The staff at Pairwise, a 6-year-old agricultural tech startup in Durham, believe this is a missed opportunity. “It’s both delicious and nutritious,” Pairwise CEO and cofounder Tom Adams said. “You don’t have to make a choice.” One of the company’s main early investors was the agrochemical and biotech giant Monsanto, which Adams had left to help start his own company. In 2018, Monsanto was bought by the German biotech corporation Bayer, which recently completed a five-year collaboration with Pairwise.Two funding rounds — raising $25 million and $90 million — gave the company the money it needed to increase production.
The company outlines nine steps it takes to modify a green, berry or stone fruit. To begin, staff pinpoint the trait they seek to change and the gene that causes it. For mustard greens, its pungency and the gene that codes for myrosinase.