Two teenage founders, Tyler Rose, 18, and Navvye Anand, 19, have raised $6 million in a seed round for their AI-driven agtech startup Bindwell, which aims to revolutionize pesticide development. The round was co-led by General Catalyst and A Capital, with a personal investment from Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, who became involved after a pivotal conversation with the founders at his home. Bindwell began as a research project during the Wolfram Summer Research Program in late 2023, where Rose and Anand developed PLAPT, an AI model for predicting protein-ligand binding affinity. Their work was later cited in a Nature Scientific Reports paper on cancer therapeutics. They soon realized the same AI techniques could be applied to agriculture, particularly in designing next-generation pesticides. Despite entering Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch with a plan to sell AI tools to established agrochemical companies, the duo found little interest. Most industry players were hesitant to adopt AI as a core part of their discovery process. A 45-minute discussion with Paul Graham changed their course. He advised them to stop selling models and instead use their AI to design new pesticide molecules in-house, then license the intellectual property—shifting from a tool provider to a product innovator. The strategy has since proven effective. Bindwell has built a proprietary AI suite that combats hallucination, a common flaw in generative models. The system includes Foldwell, a fine-tuned version of DeepMind’s AlphaFold, for predicting protein structures. PLAPT can scan all known synthesized compounds in under six hours, while APPT, a protein-protein interaction model, outperforms existing tools by 1.7 times on the Affinity Benchmark v5.5. A built-in uncertainty quantification system ensures results are reliable before moving to lab testing. The company’s approach is designed to break the cycle of increasing pesticide use and growing resistance. Current methods rely on trial-and-error testing of thousands of compounds, often with broad-spectrum effects that harm beneficial insects and ecosystems. Bindwell’s AI identifies proteins unique to target pests but absent in humans, pollinators, and aquatic life, enabling the design of highly specific, safer molecules. The startup is currently testing AI-generated compounds in its San Carlos lab and collaborating with a third-party partner for validation. Rose said Bindwell is in early talks with major agrochemical firms, with its first licensing deal expected within a year. The company is also exploring field trials in India and China. Bindwell currently operates with a core team of four and uses external contractors for molecule synthesis. The seed round also included participation from SV Angel and Character Capital, which had previously backed the company in a pre-seed round. The founders’ personal connection to agriculture—Rose’s aunt farms in China, and Anand’s family owns farmland in Delhi—drove their mission. “Agriculture has been in our mind space,” Rose said. “We saw a chance to apply AI success from drug discovery to a field that’s been overlooked but desperately needs innovation.”