Ashley Beckwith has spent years of her academic and professional career focused on the intersection of biology, materials and manufacturing to create medical solutions more efficiently. When he realized the technology could be applied to plants and plant materials, an area that desperately needed it, he decided to switch gears.
“Life on earth is only as safe as our global plant populations, and today our plant populations are truly in crisis,” Beckwith told TechCrunch. “Nearly 40% of our plant species are threatened with extinction. Forest landscapes untouched by humans shrank by 12% [in 2022]. These plant resources are being squeezed on all fronts.”
Beckwith took what she knew about bioengineering, the process of using microorganisms and cell cultures to produce biological molecules and materials on a commercial scale, and launched Foray Bioscience in February 2022. The company uses bioengineering to grow plant materials, seeds no harvesting and particles.
Biomanufacturing has been around for about 100 years, Beckwith said, but hasn’t had many practical use cases for plants until now. Because each plant species is so different, there was no one-size-fits-all approach to cell culture, which made bioengineering with plant cell cultures laborious. Foray wants to change that through the database approach. provides predictive insights and experimental direction to help accelerate the research and development process for each plant species.
“At Foray, we’re developing these advanced tools for plant-free production to ask less of these resources and start giving more back,” Beckwith said.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup has raised a $3 million round led by ReGen Ventures, an Australian company focused on supporting technology that helps restore the planet’s resources. Engine Ventures, Understorey Ventures and Superorganism also participated in the round. The startup has now raised $3.875 million in total funding and plans to build out its team.
Beckwith said it took a while to raise money because what the company is trying to do doesn’t fit neatly into one category, but rather the intersection of many, from manufacturing to biology to conservation. That “oddball” feeling is something Beckwith is used to dealing with. He said the reason he started the company in the first place is that there was no physical home for the research he was doing in plant bioengineering.
“I was in this weird interdisciplinary bubble,” Beckwith said. “This was really apparent to me when I got to the end of my Ph.D. If this research was going to go on and on, I had to carry it over to the next iteration of it. Because of the newness of the field, there wasn’t really a place for it in the academic or manufacturing environment. We had to make our own space.”
He described taking the science out of the lab and starting the company as “a long journey.” The startup is currently working with other companies to help them build their biomanufacturing, drawing their clients a research and development roadmap and helping them develop commercialization strategies.
Beckwith also has a vision that this work will allow Foray to create a genetic banking system for plant seeds, especially those that are not easy to document, and allow new seeds to grow from just a few cells. This will also help with conservation efforts.
There are many parallels between Foray’s technology and mission and the growth of lab-grown meat and seafood. While the science isn’t exactly the same, Beckwith said, both have the same goal of replacing the products and resources people are used to getting from nature with a lab-grown option that’s less harmful to the natural habitat. While lab-grown meat is a little further along in the journey, Beckwith is optimistic about Foray’s future.
“With the scale of our growing human population and our increasing demands on natural resources, it’s really important for us to be as efficient as possible with these natural resources so we can hold onto them for the long term,” Beckwith said. “This tool really allows us to overcome the natural limitations that exist in the wider world and get more from less so that we can reduce our footprint on these natural resources but still have access to the goods that we need to survive as society. “
