Ceres, Inc. was a

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

company based in

Thousand Oaks, California Thousand Oaks is the second-largest city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is in the northwestern part of Greater Los Angeles, approximately from the city of Los Angeles and from Downtown. It is named after the many oak tr ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

that operated from 1996 to 2016, when it was acquired by Land O'Lakes. The company was a spinoff from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

researchers. Its ultimate commercial products were seeds of genetically modified crops used for biofuel production. In addition to its operations in the United States, Ceres had a subsidiary in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

called ''Ceres Sementes do Brasil''.

History

The company was founded in 1996 by UCLA professor Bob Goldberg and corporate partners with an initial capital of $50 million and an off-campus laboratory site overlooking Malibu, CA. In 2002, the company signed a $137 million licensing agreement with

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in ...

for their technology. Richard Flavell was Chief Scientific Officer from 1998 until the 2012 public offering. From its 2012 initial public offering that raised $65 million until its acquisition, it was listed on the NASDAQ exchange. In 2012, the largest shareholders were Artal Luxembourg,

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...

, Ambergate Trust, and Oxford Bioscience, while biotechnology company

had 4.8% stake. The company's president and CEO was Richard Hamilton. A second public offering in 2014 raised an additional $20 million at $1 per share compared to the 2012 IPO at $13. On June 21, 2016, Ceres was acquired by

Land O'Lakes Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 ...

for $17.2 million.

Products and research

A major early (2000) accomplishment was the development of an expression library for Arabidopsis in collaboration with Keygene NV. In 2006, Ceres began a collaboration with the Noble Research Institute to develop switchgrass Ceres sold sweet sorghum,

switchgrass ''Panicum virgatum'', commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switchgrass is one of the ...

and high biomass sorghum seeds, starting in 2009.Ann Hinch for Farmworld Online May 7 200
Genome firm will sell biomass seeds for ’09 growing season
/ref> It tested biofuel production from switchgrass and

miscanthus ''Miscanthus'', or silvergrass, is a genus of African, Eurasian, and Pacific Island plants in the grass family, Poaceae. ; Species * '' Miscanthus changii'' Y.N.Lee – Korea * '' Miscanthus depauperatus'' Merr. – the Philippines * '' Miscant ...

. In 2010, Ceres started to cooperate with

Novozymes Novozymes A/S is a global biotechnology company headquartered in Bagsværd outside of Copenhagen, Denmark. The company's focus is the research, development and production of industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and biopharmaceutical ingredients. ...

to improve the

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

cocktails for biorefinery switchgrass and sweet sorghum.

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

funded Ceres' research on biotech traits and trait stacks in rice for

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

References

Biotechnology companies of the United States Biofuel producers Companies listed on the Nasdaq Biotechnology companies established in 1996 1996 establishments in California Companies based in Thousand Oaks, California {{US-company-stub