MoA Technology joined the Bioescalator in October 2018 as a small team of 3. The company is now in the process of moving to the Bellhouse Building at the Oxford Science Park with 22 team members and their new CEO, Dr Virginia Corless, an experienced leader of cutting-edge enterprises that aim to make agriculture more efficient and sustainable, who was appointed in March 2021.
Founded in 2017, MoA Technology was spun out from Oxford University's Plant Sciences Department after ground-breaking research by co-founders Professor Liam Dolan and Dr Clément Champion. The company's mission is to provide farmers with a diverse choice of innovative technologies for weed control. Their ambition is to discover the next generation of sustainable herbicide chemistries with new modes of action from both natural and synthetic sources.
MoA Technology has achieved many milestones throughout its duration at the BioEscalator.
In June 2019, the MoA Technology team met Baroness Nicola Blackwood, UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, at the BioEscalator's official opening event.
The company secured £6.3m in Series A funding from Oxford Sciences Innovation and Parkwalk Advisors in August 2019 to develop its unique in vivo herbicide discovery platforms MoA GALAXYTM, MoA TARGETTM and MoA SELECTTM. More funding was secured recently in April 2021 when Shanghai-based Bits x Bites and BGF, based in the UK and Ireland, added a further £5m extension to the Series A funding round.
In October 2020, MoA Tech agreed with CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society that has the largest and highest quality collection, to embed chemical substance data from the CAS REGISTRY® directly into MoA Tech’s R&D workflow giving their scientists access to the most relevant, actionable chemical substance data within their daily workflow to quickly assess activity, enhancing productivity and expediting innovation.
The company was also named as one of the most exciting new companies emerging from the vibrant technology environment in and around the city of Oxford, UK, in January 2021.
“MoA Technology benefited greatly from reducing to practice its foundational scientific vision in the bustling and innovative ecosystem at the BioEscalator of Oxford University. The company will remember fondly the supportive and accommodating BioEscalator team, as it embarks on another phase of growth at the Oxford Science Park” Clement Champion, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder, MoA Technology.
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