Culta's AI-Driven Strawberry Breeding Cuts Development Time by 80% in Early Trials

Culta's platform accelerates non-GMO fruit breeding cycles, with early results showing higher yields and sugar content in strawberries.

Culta, an AI-based crop breeding platform founded in 2017 by Shuhei Noaki, operates with 36 contract growers globally. Its system analyzes genomic and phenotypic data to predict offspring traits, enabling three strawberry breeding cycles annually—eight times faster than conventional methods that take one cycle per year. This acceleration reduced variety development from ten years to two years. Culta’s SAKURA DROPS strawberry variety, now commercialized in Singapore and Malaysia, delivers 1.4x yield, 1.3x sugar content, and 1.4x firmness compared to Japanese cultivars. It sells for $16 per pack, while the company targets $195 million in annual revenue by 2032. Culta has also advanced breeding for table grapes, apples, coffee, and cacao, with a 700 million yen ($4.5 million) pre-series A funding round completed in April 2026.

The platform’s core mechanism—using AI to select parent plants and predict offspring traits—aims to bypass traditional trial-and-error breeding. This could lower the cost and time to develop high-quality, non-GMO fruits for markets where premium produce is currently scarce. If scaled globally, Culta’s model might make nutrient-dense, high-sugar fruits more accessible to regions facing food insecurity.

The critical next step is proving global scalability. Culta itself characterizes its international expansion as a 'test'—meaning the business model’s viability beyond Japan remains unproven. While early results show significant efficiency gains, the company’s current focus is limited to a few crops and regions. Without verified adoption in new markets, premium fruit affordability for billions remains constrained by the same friction Culta aims to overcome.

Source: AgFunder News