Bindwell, an agriculture-tech startup founded by 18-year-old Tyler Rose and 19-year-old Navvye Anand, has raised $6 million in a seed round co-led by General Catalyst and A Capital, with additional backing from SV Angel and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham. The company, which emerged from the Winter 2025 Y Combinator batch, is leveraging advanced AI to revolutionize pesticide discovery—a field long dominated by outdated chemistry and slow, trial-based methods. Initially aiming to sell AI tools to agrochemical giants, the founders pivoted after facing little industry interest. A pivotal conversation with Paul Graham, who suggested they use their AI to develop and license new pesticide molecules themselves, reshaped their strategy and led to the birth of Bindwell. The global agricultural sector faces a growing crisis: pesticide use has doubled over the past three decades, yet up to 40% of crops are still lost annually to pests and diseases, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. As pests develop resistance, farmers rely on more chemicals, worsening environmental damage and accelerating the cycle. Bindwell’s mission is to break this pattern by using AI to design entirely new, highly targeted pesticides from scratch. Drawing on techniques from drug discovery, Bindwell has developed a suite of AI models that are four times faster than DeepMind’s AlphaFold and capable of analyzing billions of molecules. Key components include Foldwell, a fine-tuned protein structure predictor; PLAPT, an open-source model for predicting protein-ligand interactions that can screen all known synthesized compounds in under six hours; and APPT, a protein-protein interaction model for biopesticide discovery that outperforms existing tools by 1.7 times on benchmark tests. A built-in uncertainty quantification system helps flag unreliable results, reducing AI hallucination. The company’s approach is fundamentally different: instead of selling software, Bindwell uses its models in-house to design novel pesticide candidates, then licenses the intellectual property to agrochemical firms. This model allows it to move beyond the limitations of legacy research, which often relies on guesswork and extensive lab testing. By identifying proteins unique to pests but absent in humans and beneficial species, Bindwell’s AI enables the creation of safer, more precise molecules that disrupt pest function without broad ecological harm. Both founders have personal ties to agriculture. Rose’s aunt farms in China, and Anand’s family owns farmland in Delhi—experiences that fueled their drive to solve real-world farming challenges. Their journey began as a research project at the Wolfram Summer Research Program, where they developed PLAPT, later cited in a Nature Scientific Reports paper on cancer therapeutics. They adapted this work to agriculture in 2024, recognizing that the underlying biochemistry of drug and pesticide discovery is similar. Bindwell is currently validating its AI-generated molecules in its San Carlos lab and collaborating with a third-party partner for further testing. Early discussions are underway with global agrochemical companies, with first licensing deals expected within a year. The startup is also exploring field trials in India and China. With a team of four and support from external contractors, Bindwell is building a new model for innovation in a stagnant industry. The $6 million seed round, combined with backing from top-tier investors and a visionary founder like Graham, positions the company to lead a shift toward smarter, more sustainable pest control. By applying cutting-edge AI to a critical agricultural challenge, Bindwell aims to deliver faster, safer solutions that benefit farmers, ecosystems, and food security worldwide.