The next cash crop won’t get you high, but it might elevate your bottom line.
Industrial hemp. Not the stoner stereotype. Not the CBD sideshow. The kind that’s grown to fuel tractors, not drum circles. Enter Saluna, a St. Louis-based ag-tech startup that’s quietly building a new playbook for the American farmer, grain-first, data-backed, and genetically dialed in for the heartland. And if you haven’t heard the name yet, don’t worry. You will. They just pulled in $750K, capping a total raise between $2.7M and $3.5M depending on whose receipts you trust. Either way, the runway just got longer, and the mission sharper.
At the center? Matt Plummer, President and CEO, with a background stitched from venture capital, Yield Lab, and deep ag chops. Think strategy with soil under the fingernails. Next to him? Dr. Mike Gerau, CTO and plant-whisperer by trade. PhD. Adjunct prof. Monsanto and Syngenta alum. This isn’t some grow-light garage experiment; it’s the genomics-powered evolution of what farmers have been begging for: something profitable, legal, and built to grow in southern and midwestern dirt without giving Uncle Sam a THC-induced panic attack.
Saluna’s hemp varieties aren’t gunning for the CBD gold rush. They’re targeting grain and oilseed, biofuels, feed, food ingredients, stuff that scales. Their seeds are designed to stay under that magic 0.3% THC line, all while putting up yield profiles that make soybeans start sweating. And they’re not just selling hope in a bag. They’re doing the field work, literally. Southeast Missouri State University is in the mix, with research plots, student hires, and boots in the soil.
Backers? BioGenerator Ventures, Hermann Companies, and Missouri Technology Corporation. Institutional, regional, and mission-aligned. These aren’t spray-and-pray checks. These are “let’s build this from the ground up” bets.
There’s a lesson here. Farmers don’t need another flyer. They need reliable options that pay. VCs don’t need another hype cycle. They need founders who understand risk like they’ve lived it. And the rest of us? We need to pay attention when a startup starts growing value out of ground most investors forgot existed.
Hemp is back. Only this time, it’s wearing a lab coat and carrying a profit margin.
