BASF Agricultural Solutions Announces Acquisition of AgBiTech

Index

1. Overview

2. AgBiTech and its Technology

3. AgBiTech Business and Go-to-Market Overview

4. Challenges

5. Why The Acquisition Makes Sense

6. Valuation

7. Final Thoughts

Overview

BASF Agricultural Solutions announced an agreement to acquire AgBiTech, a portfolio company of Paine Schwartz Partners specializing in biological insect control solutions.

The acquisition includes AgBiTech’s full portfolio, intellectual property, manufacturing operations, and R&D facilities. While financial terms were not disclosed, the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026.

Outside of BASF’s Becker Underwood acquisition in 2012, BASF has been relatively quiet on the bio front – however, in 2024 they began announcing several partnerships on the biostimulant side of things, including with biostimulant companies Elicit Plant and Acadian Plant Health, plus with AgroSpheres for bioinsecticides.

What did stand out was that at their 2024 Capital Markets Day, they highlighted some incremental focus in biologicals, but one takeaway for me was the low number of bio-based products in their pipeline. If we compare to a Bayer, Corteva, or FMC pipeline it is essentially non-existent outside two products, only in fruit and vegetable, which suggested a need to go out and acquire if they were serious about the future of the segment:

In an interview with Brazil’s AgFeed, it was stated that in Brazil 10% of BASFs revenue comes from biologicals, with ambitions to move towards 15-20%.

AgBiTech and its Technology

AgBiTech was founded in Australia in 2000 and had been majority owned by private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners since 2015.

AgBiTech built a leadership position in nucleopolyhedrosis virus (NPV) based bioinsecticides.

NPV is a virus affecting insects, predominantly moth and butterfly larvae (aka pests like bollworm and fall armyworm).

The virus enters the nucleus of infected cells and reproduces until the cell begins to produce crystals in the fluids of the host. These crystals can transmit the virus from one host to another. The host becomes swollen with fluid containing the virus, eventually dispersing to other insects, so they take longer than traditional spray and kill insecticides, and they are much more targeted, primarily only affecting the targeted worm species.

This virus itself is almost always present in fields. But the levels of it may not increase at a rate consistent with the population growth of insects like army worms, leading to the opportunity in applying heavier rates with specific types of viruses.

The mode of action of AgBiTech’s products is classified by the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC) as Group 31 (host-specific occluded pathogenic viruses). The specific group has no cross-resistance with synthetic MoAs such as pyrethroids (Group 3A), organophosphates (Group 1B), diamides (Group 28), or Bt proteins (Group 11). There are growing resistance concerns to Bt in the USA and Brazil for example, and Brazil (plus Argentina, Paraguay) is where 70% of AgBiTech’s revenue comes from, which reinforces the emphasis for AgBiTech as a biocontrol beach head in the region.

AgBiTech has a portfolio of more than a dozen products, primarily targeting corn, soybean and cotton.

AgBiTech Revenue, Business and Go-to-Market Overview

Subscribe to Upstream Ag Professional to read the rest.