What the Fall of 23andMe Could Signal for Soil Genomics Companies in Agriculture

That’s how Rob Leclerc of AgFunder described Trace Genomics— capturing the hope that genomics could unlock new agronomic insights, just as it had promised in human health.

Fast forward to today: 23andMe announced bankruptcy.

The company was valued at nearly $6 billion at its peak. Its DNA test kits once promised to reshape personalized medicine, research, and healthcare. But in the end, its business model never truly evolved beyond a one-time purchase—and its expansion into biopharma never scaled.

The parallels for Trace Genomics, and similar agtech companies like Pattern Ag, which merged with EarthOptics in 2024, are hard to ignore. A common view for these companies was that they eventually reshape crop input decision, product discovery and positioning through data, becoming a core complement to an input purchase and decision, and monetizing the data along the way.

I have publicly stated my bullishness for companies like Trace Genomics and Pattern Ag— from an agronomic perspective, I love the concept. A deeper understanding of the soil, particularly surrounding biological parameters and pests has upside.

However, the question I poorly considered from a business perspective was: “At what cost?”

Start-up soil testing companies have challenging economics, something I broke down early last year, extrapolating from publicly available information. Data and decision businesses with high upfront costs are very hard.