Wild Bioscience acquires F1 Seed

Altor BioScience, a University of Oxford spinout specializing in AI-driven crop genetics and precision breeding, has acquired F1 Seed, an independent UK wheat breeding company founded by William Angus. The acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, creates Britain's first independent precision-breeding wheat business, combining Wild Bio's evolutionary biology, gene editing, and AI-led trait discovery with F1 Seed's commercial breeding pipeline and diverse germplasm. This integration allows Wild Bio to become a fully integrated seed company, capable of designing, breeding, and delivering new wheat varieties directly to UK farmers. The deal follows Wild Bio's €51 million Series A investment, which raised its total funding to €65.8 million from investors including The Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford Science Enterprises, Braavos Capital, and the University of Oxford. The acquisition addresses the long-standing challenge of commercializing gene-editing discoveries, and comes amid concerns about the concentration of wheat genetics among multinationals, which has left over 50% of UK wheat varieties vulnerable to yellow rust. Wild Bio aims to tackle the 30-year stagnation in UK wheat yields, exacerbated by recent climate extremes, and plans to deliver conventionally bred varieties by 2027 and precision-bred lines by 2028. The move is enabled by England's Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations, which came into force in November 2025, providing a route to market for targeted gene edits.