Gates $2.5M backs Converge Bio AI platform for climate-resilient crop in Africa and Asia

Converge Bio has announced a three-year $2.5 million grant from the Gates Foundation to expand the capabilities of its AI-powered pharmaceutical gene discovery platform to address agriculture crop genomics. The Boston and Tel Aviv-based generative AI life sciences company will develop a multimodal model designed to identify genetic variants linked to crop yield and climate resilience. The initiative aims to accelerate development of climate-adaptive crops for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by shortening traditional breeding cycles that can take over a decade. The project will apply Converge Bio’s “virtual cell” technologies to accelerate discovery to improve crop yields that bolster global food security under increasing climate volatility.