- Rainbow Crops is a Ghent-based AgTech startup using AI and multiplex genome editing to develop more resilient, high-performing crops.
- Its proprietary Trait Foundry™ platform helps improve complex traits such as yield stability, stress resilience and input efficiency.
- The company recently raised a €9.7m seed round and was awarded a $7m Gates Foundation grant to help scale its platform and advance climate-resilient crop development.
Website: https://www.rainbowcrops.com/
Tell Us About Rainbow Crops
Rainbow Crops is a next-generation AgTech company developing climate-resilient, high-performing crop varieties. Based in Ghent, Belgium, and founded as a spin-off from the internationally renowned VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Rainbow Crops combines artificial intelligence, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding and automated phenotyping through its proprietary Trait Foundry™ platform.
Agriculture is facing increasing pressure from climate volatility, disease, resource constraints and the need to produce more food with fewer inputs. Many of the traits needed to respond to these challenges, such as yield stability, drought tolerance and input efficiency, are highly complex and controlled by multiple genes. Rainbow Crops was created to help seed and breeding companies address these challenges faster and with greater precision.
In June 2026, Rainbow Crops announced an oversubscribed €9.7m seed round to scale its AI-driven multiplex gene editing platform. The round followed a recent $7m Gates Foundation grant supporting the application of Trait Foundry™ to advance climate-resilient crops.
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What Makes Rainbow Crops Unique?
What makes Rainbow Crops unique is its ability to rationally design and build genetic diversity, rather than relying only on naturally occurring variation or single-gene edits. Through its Trait Foundry™ platform, Rainbow Crops generates large populations of gene-edited plants carrying diverse combinations of targeted edits.
Those populations are then grown, phenotyped and screened to identify genetic combinations that improve traits such as yield stability, stress resilience and input efficiency. The data generated from each cycle is fed back into the platform, helping Rainbow Crops improve future predictions and designs.
This closed-loop model combines AI, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding and automated phenotyping to address complex agronomic traits that are difficult to improve with traditional breeding alone.
Is There A Market For Rainbow Crops?
Yes. Seed and breeding companies are under growing pressure to deliver crop varieties that can perform reliably under more volatile conditions. Traditional breeding remains essential, but it can be slow and less predictable when tackling complex traits such as heat resilience, drought tolerance, yield stability and input efficiency.
The market environment is also becoming more favourable. The EU’s new framework for New Genomic Techniques is a major development for the sector, particularly because it provides a clearer route for certain NGT-1 plants to be treated more like conventionally bred plants. This is hugely important for companies working on gene-edited crop innovation, as it reduces uncertainty and gives breeders, technology companies and investors greater confidence to develop and commercialise improved varieties in Europe.
Rainbow Crops provides seed and breeding companies with access to advanced genome engineering capabilities without requiring them to build the full infrastructure in-house. The company’s recent seed round, strategic investor backing and Gates Foundation grant reflect growing international demand for technologies that can accelerate climate-resilient crop development.
Where Can We Find Rainbow Crops?
Rainbow Crops is based in Ghent, Belgium, and works with seed and breeding partners globally.
You can find out more at: www.rainbowcrops.com.
