April 7, 2025 – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, through its technology transfer company Yissum, proudly announces that its portfolio company CapsiBreed has signed a significant commercial agreement with Dutch seed company Erma Zaden. This strategic partnership marks a major milestone in the development and scalability of CapsiBreed’s groundbreaking crop improvement technology.

The agreement will focus on enhancing the genetic qualities of hybrid hot and bell pepper seeds, using CapsiBreed’s proprietary gene editing platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Erma Zaden will provide elite parental seed lines, which CapsiBreed will modify by introducing novel agricultural traits, including improved shelf life, biotic and abiotic stresses, flavor, yield, color, and emerging consumer preferences such as crispiness. In addition to peppers, the agreement gives CapsiBreed access to Erma Zaden’s other products: tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and watermelons.

“This is a major milestone for CapsiBreed,” said Dr. Oded Skaliter, co-founder and CTO of CapsiBreed. “This agreement marks CapsiBreed’s entry into the big leagues, serving as a testament to the company’s technology and capabilities. It underscores the adoption of advanced molecular breeding techniques and highlights CapsiBreed’s growing impact in the industry. CapsiBreed’s proprietary platform allows us to harness the power of molecular tools for breeding of hot and sweet peppers, which, unlike other crops from its family, like tomatoes and tobacco, are notoriously known as highly recalcitrant for gene modification techniques. Our technology removes this bottleneck, enabling the efficient application of molecular breeding techniques to rapidly and precisely introduce multiple desirable traits—such as disease resistance and enhanced flavor—that were previously unattainable through traditional pepper breeding. This collaboration will help us bring improved agricultural produce to the global market.”

The collaboration builds upon the time-tested practice of hybrid breeding—crossing two parent seed lines (Parent A and Parent B) to create superior offspring. Yet, introducing new traits into both parental lines by traditional breeding techniques can be laborious, time-consuming, costly, and limited to existing genetic pools. By integrating CapsiBreed’s cutting-edge technology, we will be able to speed up and elevate the process to a new level of precision and innovation.

The result: Hybrid seeds with unmatched combinations of qualities, optimized not only for farmers and food producers but also for the pharma industry and for rapidly evolving consumer trends.

Yissum, the technology transfer company of Hebrew University, played a key role in facilitating the collaboration and bringing CapsiBreed’s research-based innovation to market.

“This partnership embodies Yissum’s mission to transform academic excellence into real-world solutions,” said Alon Natanson, CEO of Yissum. “CapsiBreed’s breakthrough is not just an academic achievement—it’s a significant commercial leap forward for sustainable agriculture.”

As global agriculture grapples with mounting pressures—ranging from the impacts of climate change to the growing demand for healthier, nutritious food and sustainable farming practices—new technological solutions are gaining traction across the industry. The agreement between CapsiBreed and Erma Zaden reflects a broader shift toward the use of advanced gene-editing tools to enhance crop performance and resilience. By focusing on key traits such as yield, disease resistance, shelf life, and flavor, the partnership illustrates how agricultural innovation is increasingly moving from the lab to commercial application. Industry observers note that such collaborations may signal a turning point in how food crops are developed and scaled for future markets.

“This is the future of agriculture,” said Dr. Oded Sagee, co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Capsibreed. “Seed companies that do not adopt gene-editing technologies will fall behind. Meeting the global need for more resilient, high-quality crops requires innovation. This is the next green revolution—and it’s already underway.”

Founded in 2024, CapsiBreed is pioneering the future of pepper breeding with cutting-edge gene-modification techniques. The company’s proprietary technology, developed by Prof. Alexander Vainstein, a plant sciences expert at the Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at Hebrew University, enables the application of advanced molecular breeding techniques to rapidly modify multiple key traits in hot and sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum), creating peppers with tailored traits for agriculture, food, beverages, and pharma industries.