Wild Bioscience sees £45 million EIT-backed expansion at Milton Park

Wild Bioscience, a University of Oxford spinout focused on climate-resilient crops, has expanded its presence at Milton Park to 16,000 sq ft, following a £45m Series A investment led by the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT).

The investment is supported by continued backing from Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), Braavos and the University of Oxford.

The new lease includes additional laboratory and office space, to increase its footprint by 4,560 sq ft (423 sq m) across 115K Olympic Avenue and additional buildings, with key features such as a newly fitted office and CL2 gene-editing laboratory at 127 Olympic Avenue.

This expansion supports the company’s transition into a more mature operating model, with the new space configured as a dedicated crop design and engineering facility focused on precision-bred wheat.

Wild Bioscience has grown at Milton Park since 2021, taking additional space as it has scaled. The business now employs 40 people and has capacity for further growth.

The latest space has enabled the company to significantly increase its research and development capabilities, including tripling plant output within a matter of months. Further works are underway to convert existing office space into bespoke crop growth facilities, increasing controlled environment capacity for testing and seed production.

Alongside its real estate expansion, the business has strengthened its senior team with the appointment of Lisa Flashner, chief operating office at the Ellison Institute of Technology, as a non-executive director, and Dr Stuart Harrison as chief business officer.

Comments

Ross Hendron, chief executive and co-founder of Wild Bioscience, said: “This expansion in infrastructure, team, and technology is a key step in developing the engineering loop that bridges computational design and plant biology.

“Choosing Milton Park was a great decision that we made early on. They’ve been a genuinely collaborative partner as we’ve scaled, giving us the flexibility to grow deliberately and shape our environment around the work, not the other way around.”

Tom Booker, asset manager at Milton Park at Federated Hermes Real Estate, said: “Wild Bioscience’s continued expansion demonstrates the strength of demand from science and technology companies looking for flexible, scalable space.

“Their growth reflects both the quality of the Park’s offer and the ability to support occupiers as they evolve from early-stage innovation through to commercial scale.”