Agricultural biotech
Full-genome rights to a product line, globally. The tier that sits between a single Sector deal and a full platform white-label.
The licensee
A top-five global vegetable seed developer, publicly traded, with distribution into fifty-plus countries. The seed company had been watching the Beyond Peppers tomato program for eighteen months and wanted to take ownership of the entire category — not one SKU, not one sector, but the full engineered Spicy Tomato product line worldwide.
The scope
Thirty-two tomato cultivars across Tier 1 Spark, Tier 2 Flare, and the specialty bands of the Beyond Peppers program. Each cultivar ships as its complete construct plus the full FBA model, CRISPR guide sets, and all breeding records. The license grants worldwide, category-exclusive rights to commercialize finished seed, retaining Scoville Splice as design partner for all future cultivars added to the line.
The deal
An eight-figure upfront payment, a per-hectare royalty on commercial plantings, and an equity component in a jointly held product venture. Scoville Splice retains the design rights and the right to develop analogous products in other species. The term is ten years renewable; break-up terms are defined around minimum royalty thresholds. These are atypical deals and typically take six to nine months to negotiate.
The build
Technology transfer runs over the first twelve months. Our team embeds engineers at the licensee's wet lab and shepherds every cultivar through independent regeneration, phenotyping, and regulatory submission. The joint venture becomes the regulatory and commercial principal in each geography; Scoville Splice continues to publish, cite, and reference each cultivar as part of its catalog.
The outcome
For the licensee, Genome licensing is the fastest route to owning an entirely new category of seed. For Scoville Splice, it converts design-stage products into field-stage commercial revenue without building a seed-production business of our own. Both sides keep the part of the value chain they are best at.
For the tier above Genome, see the Platform License case study.