How ICL Planet Startup Hub Accelerates AI-Driven Innovation in Agrifood through Strategic Venture Partnerships
Written by Hadar Sutovsky, ICL VP Corporate Investments & GM of ICL Planet Startup Hub
Executive Summary
As artificial intelligence reshapes how companies discover, design, and deliver innovation, traditional R&D functions in the agrifood industry are under pressure to adapt. For ICL—a global leader in crop nutrition, food ingredients, and sustainable solutions—leveraging AI to accelerate discovery was not just an opportunity, but a necessity. This case study explores how ICL Planet Startup Hub, ICL’s corporate venture capital arm, has acted as a strategic catalyst for AI integration across the company’s R&D activities. By investing in and partnering with deep-tech startups like Protera, Agrematch, and Lavie Bio, ICL has partnered with AI-powered platforms to step up its product development pipelines—from functional protein design to microbial biologicals and smart crop nutrition. Through these collaborations, ICL Planet is not only enabling rapid innovation, but also future-proofing ICL’s position in a competitive, sustainability-driven agrifood landscape. This story highlights how corporate venture capital can serve as a bridge between AI-native startups and large industrial incumbents, creating mutual value, accelerating time to market, and transforming the way science is done inside the corporation.
Introduction: Why Corporates Must Move Faster on AI in Agrifood
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept in agrifood—it’s a mission-critical tool for discovery, productivity, and sustainability. From AI-driven protein design and smart biostimulants to predictive agronomy and supply chain optimization, the technology is already reshaping how the industry operates. According to McKinsey, the economic potential of generative and analytical AI in agriculture exceeds $250 billion, with significant gains in yield, cost efficiency, and R&D acceleration. Yet many legacy corporations struggle to embed AI within their core functions, constrained by outdated systems, data silos, or slow innovation cycles. Meanwhile, AI-native startups are moving fast—raising the risk of established players being outpaced or out-innovated. This is where Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) becomes a strategic catalyst. In this case study, we explore how ICL Planet Startup Hub leverages CVC to bring breakthrough AI capabilities into ICL’s R&D engine ensuring the company remains competitive, agile, and future-ready.
CVC as a Strategic Bridge to AI in Agrifood and Beyond
Corporate Venture Capital units are increasingly recognized not just as investment arms, but as transformation agents. For AI technologies in particular—where agility, experimentation, and deep-tech expertise are vital—CVCs offer a structured way to validate, adapt, and scale innovation.
Across industries, leading CVCs are facilitating the AI transition:
- GV (Google Ventures) fuels Alphabet’s health and diagnostics expansion with investments in AI-driven startups like Freenome and Tempus.
- Samsung Catalyst Fund backs AI hardware and edge processing startups to enhance Samsung’s consumer and industrial tech stack.
- BASF Venture Capital has partnered with deep-tech ventures like Bota Biosciences and Pando, helping inject AI and synthetic biology into industrial workflows.
What these CVCs share is a commitment to strategic integration: going beyond equity stakes to secure pilots, licensing, or co-development. The same ethos guides ICL Planet Startup Hub.
ICL Planet Startup Hub: Where AI Meets Applied Agrifood R&D
ICL has long recognized that to remain at the forefront of global agriculture, food, and sustainability challenges, it must evolve beyond traditional R&D models. That understanding led to the establishment of ICL Planet Startup Hub—a dedicated corporate venture arm designed to accelerate ICL’s innovation journey by leveraging the agility of startups.
Since its founding, ICL Planet has served as a launchpad for strategic collaborations, identifying and backing early-stage companies with breakthrough technologies that complement ICL’s core business and future ambitions. Its scope spans FoodTech, AgTech, ClimateTech, and engineered materials.
While AI is not the Hub’s exclusive focus, it has been an early pioneer in leveraging AI-powered platforms where they intersect with ICL’s core challenges—ingredient functionality, crop yield & resilience, and biological efficacy.
What sets ICL Planet apart is its hybrid model:
- Capital investment in mission-critical startups
- Proof-of-concept validation with R&D teams and BUs
- Collaborative pathways to commercial scale or acquisition
This model has enabled ICL to unlock AI’s potential not in isolation but anchored in real industrial needs.
With an eye toward sustainability, scientific rigor, and commercial potential, the Hub has become an important vehicle for exploring emerging technological frontiers—including the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on discovery, development, and product design in the agrifood value chain.
Protein Discovery Reinvented: AI Driven Foodtech
As consumer demand shifts toward clean-label, sustainable proteins, ICL recognized the need for a faster, smarter ingredient discovery process. Enter Protera, a startup using deep learning to predict protein structure–function relationships and design novel, functional proteins from nature’s own alphabet. Through its CVC investment, ICL Planet helped catalyze a joint development track focused on protein-based functional proteins. This collaboration will allow ICL’s FoodTech unit to:
- Analys Protera’s protein for performance in food matrices
- Explore alternative ingredient formats with high functionality and clean-label profiles
- Maintain a front-row seat in the evolution of AI-led ingredient discovery
The partnership reflects how AI can compress R&D cycles and expand the toolbox of functional food innovation—when backed by the right corporate collaboration model.
Smart Compound Discovery: Unlocking Crop Nutrition
With agriculture under strain from climate change, the race is on to design biostimulants and crop nutrition products that work in increasingly volatile environments. Traditional molecule screening is slow and costly—Agrematch offers an alternative.
Their AI-powered discovery engine simulates biological interactions to identify and optimize novel compounds with agronomic value. ICL Planet’s investment unlocked a multi-tiered collaboration:
- Targeted discovery project aligned to specific ICL product needs
- Joint development in select compound families
- Real-world validation trials via ICL’s agronomy and portfolio teams
The impact? Faster time-to-discovery, reduced R&D risk, and a pipeline of differentiated crop solutions rooted in digital chemistry and predictive biology.
Microbial Mastery: How AI Became a Cornerstone of ICL’s Bio Strategy
Perhaps the most mature example of AI-powered R&D integration is Lavie Bio, a microbial discovery and development company spun out of Evogene. Using a proprietary AI platform, Lavie Bio optimizes beneficial microbial consortia for applications in crop protection and stimulation.
ICL Planet’s initial investment set the stage for a deep strategic partnership, including:
- Field-level testing and co-development of biologicals
- Alignment with ICL Growing Solutions’ pipeline and market priorities
- Full acquisition and integration of Lavie Bio into ICL’s long-term biologicals strategy
Today, Lavie Bio serves as the anchor of ICL’s bio-innovation capability, accelerating the shift from synthetic ag-inputs to sustainable biological alternatives powered by data and predictive microbiology.
Strategic Takeaways: What Makes AI Integration Work via CVC
From Protera to Agrematch to Lavie Bio, several key lessons emerge:
- AI alone isn’t enough—strategic alignment to internal needs is critical.
- CVC acts as translator and enabler, helping startups navigate corporate complexities.
- Internal champions from BUs and R&D must co-own the collaboration.
- Flexibility and long-term thinking, In venture collaborations, patient capital and flexible deal terms often unlock more value than quick wins.
Conclusion: From Insight to Impact
ICL’s journey with AI-led innovation is a testament to what purpose-driven CVC can unlock. It’s not about chasing trends—it’s about building lasting capabilities.
Through strategic investments and collaborations with Protera, Agrematch, and Lavie Bio, ICL Planet Startup Hub has shown that CVC is more than a financial vehicle—it is a catalyst for cultural, scientific, and commercial transformation.
And for corporates navigating the complexity of AI adoption, that might just be the bridge they need.
References
- Global Corporate Venturing. (2024). Finding a New Path: How Venture Units Guide Corporations Through Transformational Change. Retrieved from https://www.globalventuring.com
- ICL Planet Startup Hub. (2024). A CVC Success Story: ICL and Lavie Bio – Setting the Course for a Biologicals Power Hub. Available at: https://www.icl-planet.com
- McKinsey & Company. (2024). From Bytes to Bushels: How Gen AI Can Shape the Future of Agriculture. Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com
- Protera Biosciences. (n.d.). AI-powered protein design for functional food ingredients. Retrieved from: https://www.proterabio.com
- Agrematch. (n.d.). AI-based discovery engine for crop protection and nutrition. Retrieved from: https://www.agrematch.com
- Lavie Bio. (2024). Harnessing predictive biology to design microbial-based agricultural products. Retrieved from: https://www.lavie-bio.com
- Evogene Ltd. (2023). Computational biology and AI platforms powering Lavie Bio. Retrieved from: https://www.evogene.com
- StartUs Insights. (2024). Strategic Guide to AI in Agriculture. Retrieved from: https://www.startus-insights.com
- AgFunder News. (2024). Are Agrifood Corporates Pushing Their AI Agendas Enough? Retrieved from: https://www.agfundernews.com
- Eatable Adventures. (2024). Artificial Intelligence in AgriFoodTech. Retrieved from: https://eatableadventures.com
