CropDesign is a

biotech 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 b ...

company located in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. The company develops a portfolio of agronomic traits for the global commercial seed markets. It has developed a technology platform to discover genetic traits for the improvement of corn,

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

and other plants. Current Managing Director is Juergen Logemann.

History

CropDesign was founded in 1998 as a spin-off from the Flanders Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) and the Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries of the

University of Ghent Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...

. One of the founders of the company is

Marc Van Montagu Marc, Baron Van Montagu (born 10 November 1933 in Ghent) is a Belgian molecular biologist. He was full professor and director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium) and scientific director of the ...

who is a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

pioneer in plant genetics. Another co-founder was Professor Dirk Inzé, specialist in plant cell cycle technologies. The company was financially backed until 2006 by a consortium of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

funds led by the GIMV.

BASF Plant Science BASF Plant Science is a subsidiary of BASF in which all plant biotechnology activities are consolidated. The company was founded in 1998 and employs approximately 700 people at 6 different locations worldwide. The headquarters of BASF Plant Scienc ...

acquired the company in 2006. The company announced in May 2016 that they would cease operations by the end of the year. BASF stated at the time that they wished to focus on "more rapidly marketable projects." The larger site of CropDesign N.V. in

Zwijnaarde Zwijnaarde () is a village in the municipality of Ghent, Belgium. It is known for its fair and its ''Zwijntjes'' beer. A cluster of biotech companies is located at the Zwijnaarde science park, with biotech companies such as Innogenetics, and De ...

has been closed. The company CropDesign N.V is still operating out of its Nevele site. Currently, 41 persons are working on projects involving plant phenotyping and plant imaging technologies as well as computational analyses and data interpretation.

References

External links

CropDesign

Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries
Biotechnology companies of Belgium Biotechnology companies established in 1998 Companies based in East Flanders 1998 establishments in Belgium {{Belgium-company-stub

History

See also

References

External links