By Zablon Oyugi, March 4, 2026 Rainbow Crops, a next-generation agricultural technology company developing crop genetics with enhanced complex agronomic traits, has been awarded a $7 million grant from the Gates Foundation to advance climate-resilient crops research for global food security, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The funding will support the application of Rainbow Crops’ proprietary Trait Foundry™ platform to develop new genetic approaches aimed at improving crop performance under heat and drought stress—conditions that increasingly threaten smallholder farmers in vulnerable regions.
The project seeks to accelerate the development of climate-resilient crops and improve germplasm delivery by identifying and combining beneficial alleles that enhance germination and early plant performance under challenging climatic conditions.
Particular emphasis will be placed on strengthening seedling performance under heat and drought stress, generating both new scientific knowledge and trait-building components to support future breeding efforts.
Rainbow Crops’ Trait Foundry™ platform integrates multiplex genome editing, artificial intelligence, breeding and phenotyping to systematically identify and combine optimised genetic variants that underpin complex agronomic traits.
Unlike traditional breeding methods or single-gene modification approaches, the platform is designed to address traits controlled by multiple interacting genes, such as drought tolerance and plant vigour.
The research will initially focus on corn, sorghum and rice—staple crops that are critical to global food security, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. By targeting improvements in these crops, the initiative aims to deliver practical solutions for farmers facing rising temperatures and water scarcity.
Rainbow Crops’ technology platform builds on years of foundational research conducted at VIB, a leading life sciences research institute where the core scientific innovations were developed. As part of the collaboration, Rainbow Crops will work closely with the Laboratory of Professor Hilde Nelissen, from which the company was spun off, as well as with the VIB Transformation Facility and the VIB Agro-Incubator.
Giacomo Bastianelli, Co-founder and CEO of Rainbow Crops, said the grant would strengthen the company’s capacity to deliver foundational innovations for climate adaptation.
“This grant allows us to further strengthen our technology platform and contribute foundational advances that enable more climate-resilient crops, with relevance to regions most vulnerable to environmental change,” Bastianelli said.
The company’s platform has already been validated end-to-end in corn, demonstrating the feasibility of its multiplex genome editing and trait discovery approach across multiple characteristics. This validation underscores the potential scalability of the technology to other crops and traits relevant to climate resilience.
In addition to its academic collaborations, Rainbow Crops will work with other industry partners, coordinating scientific approaches and sharing data to accelerate collective progress in crop improvement.
The grant is expected to support the generation of new genetic insights and tools that can be integrated into breeding pipelines, ultimately helping smallholder farmers access improved crop varieties better suited to increasingly harsh environmental conditions.
The investment marks a significant step in advancing innovative agricultural technologies aimed at strengthening food security in regions most exposed to climate change.
