Tropic raises $105M to scale gene-edited bananas as Panama Disease threatens Cavendish

Tropic is a Norwich, UK, agbiotech company using CRISPR and its own GEiGS technology to gene-edit bananas, rice and other tropical crops.

That targeted gene editing, with no foreign DNA, can deliver new bananas and a defence against TR4 fast enough, and in volume, to matter to a threatened $25B industry.

$105M Series C on top of about $73.5M raised earlier

Gilad Gershon, an agritech investor and former Israeli Navy ship commander, and virologist Eyal Maori founded Tropic in late 2016 at the Norwich Research Park. They built a platform using CRISPR and the company's own Gene Editing Induced Gene Silencing technology, GEiGS, to make targeted changes to tropical crops without adding foreign DNA.

Tropic raised a $10M Series A in 2018 led by Pontifax AgTech and Five Seasons Ventures, a $28.5M Series B in 2020 led by Temasek and a $35M Series C in 2022 led by Blue Horizon. In 2025 it commercially launched the two banana varieties, with approvals in the Philippines, Colombia, Honduras, the US and Canada and US and Canadian consumer launches planned for 2026. It also shipped plants to set up a mother plantation for TR4-resistant bananas, targeted for 2027, and licensed GEiGS to Corteva, British Sugar and Genus.

TR4 has no known cure and threatens the single Cavendish variety that dominates banana exports.

Two approved varieties showed the technology works, and demand already exceeded Tropic's ability to produce.

Scaling plant production and export partnerships was now the main bottleneck, not the science.

The platform could earn beyond bananas, as shown by licences to Corteva, British Sugar and Genus.

After proving a product works, the binding constraint becomes production scale; here a second Series C funds plants and partnerships, not more science.

As of 2026-03-13 Tropic had two varieties on the market in some regions, consumer launches in the US and Canada planned for 2026, and TR4-resistant varieties targeted for 2027. Supply, sales and timelines are company statements; no revenue was disclosed.