Molagri Raises $5.8 Million to Develop 'Updatable' Biopesticides
October 14, 2026 | Elaine Watson
Agtech | Biomanufacturing & biologicals | Deeptech | Precision agriculture | Startups & funding | US & Canada | The team at Molagri
Image credit: Yasmine Omar
Toronto-based startup Molagri has raised $5.8 million in pre-seed and seed funding to develop a new generation of “precision biopesticides” designed to target specific insect pests and adapt as they develop resistance.
The Tech and Its Benefits
The tech—initially targeting pests in tree nuts and tree fruits—addresses two significant challenges in crop protection:
- Pest Resistance: Development of resistance to existing pesticides.
- Broad-Spectrum Damage: Unintended damage caused by products that target a wide range of insects.
Co-founder Zaky Hassan states, "Farmers shouldn’t have to worry about resistance, the same way you don’t think about which flu strain is going around when you get a flu shot. We want to be the team that designs the next product before resistance becomes a problem in the field."
Funding and Investors
The seed round was led by Convective Capital, with participation from Superorganism, Y Combinator, Julian Capital, and angel investors including Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham.
How It Works
The platform, developed by Zaky Hassan and Min Jin, utilizes engineered non-infectious virus-like particles (VLPs):
- Ingestion: Pests ingest the VLPs.
- Binding: Proteins on the VLPs recognize and bind to specific receptors in the insect’s gut.
- Delivery: The VLPs deliver genetic instructions (mRNA) prompting the insect’s cells to produce a toxin that kills the pest.
- Selectivity: Beneficial insects like pollinators lack the receptor and are not affected.
Modular Platform and Future Resistance
The platform is modular, allowing Molagri to adapt the targeting and payload as pests evolve. While exploring regulatory aspects, Hassan notes, "At a minimum, our payloads will be safe for honeybees, beneficials, and vertebrates, even without the delivery gating by the VLPs."
Molagri aims for high specificity, using structural biology and protein engineering to:
- Determine receptor structures in both target pests and beneficial insects.
- Design targeting proteins that bind to pests but not pollinators.
Beyond Specificity
The company aims to "update" pesticides as resistance develops by:
- Swapping out components responsible for targeting pests or killing them.
- Redesigning targeting proteins to recognize modified receptors if pests evolve resistance.