You don’t wake up one day and decide to reinvent the chickpea. You do it because you’ve been in the trenches of plant science for decades, holding the keys to a genetic library that would make Indiana Jones jealous, and because you see a $90B plant-based food market that’s starving for ingredients that actually deliver. That’s NuCicer. A Davis, California biotech taking a humble pulse and breeding it into a high-protein heavyweight without going GMO.
Kathryn Cook, CEO and Co-Founder, brings a background in aerospace and AI program management, meaning she knows how to run missions where failure isn’t an option. Douglas Cook, PhD, CSO and Co-Founder, is the UC Davis professor who’s spent 20+ years trekking the globe collecting wild chickpea relatives most people didn’t know existed. Brendan Riley, PhD, Head of Computational Biology and Co-Founder, turns that genetic treasure trove into actionable breeding data faster than most startups can order merch. Together, they’re building chickpeas with up to 35% protein, higher fiber, lower fat, and the maturity speed to dodge unpredictable weather by 10-20 days.
This isn’t just boutique ag-tech. In 2025 alone, NuCicer planted 2,500 acres of their Gen 1 high-protein chickpeas, with plans to scale to over 25,000 acres next year. They’re already supplying minimally processed flours and protein ingredients to pasta and snack brands that understand clean label isn’t a fad, it’s the future. And they’re doing it while partnering with growers across Montana and beyond, embedding themselves in the real food supply chain rather than playing lab-only science project.
The market is paying attention. On July 30, 2025, NuCicer announced an $11.5M Series A, led by Rhapsody Venture Partners with backing from Leaps by Bayer, Illumina Ventures, Better Ventures, Stray Dog Capital, and a leading global food company. Add the $4.5M seed round from Lever VC, The House Fund, Trellis Road, and Lifely VC, and you’ve got $16M fueling the scale-up of a protein source that doesn’t require clearing rainforests or firing up fermentation tanks.
The science runs deep, genome-guided “speed breeding” tied to a germplasm library expanded forty-fold, machine learning driven trait selection, and patents pending on high-protein markers. The business sense runs deeper, a licensing model that slips seamlessly into existing food manufacturing infrastructure, letting NuCicer go global without buying a single factory.
NuCicer isn’t betting on plant-based trends. They’re building the agricultural backbone that makes those trends possible. In a world chasing protein at any cost, Kathryn Cook, Douglas Cook, and Brendan Riley are showing that the smartest play is starting with a better seed.
