Phytelligence Expands Agricultural Expertise; Hires Vice President, Business Development

SEATTLE - Dec. 13, 2016 - PRLog -- Phytelligence, the leader in agricultural biotechnology revolutionizing food crops, today announced the addition of Tim Zenk to the growing agriculturally-savvy team.  Zenk comes to Phytelligence from algae biotechnology pioneers Sapphire Energy and Algenol Biotechnology, where he served  in various executive roles, including business development and policy, and with focus on China, India, public and energy sector strategic partnerships.

In his role, Zenk will help the company develop strategic relationships in new global markets and monetize the growing portfolio of technologies developed at Phytelligence's research and development lab in Pullman, Washington. In securing strategic domestic and international partnerships, he will explore and pursue partnerships with industry, public sector and non-governmental organizations (NGO) to help farmers increase quality, yields and income from food crops.

Zenk's diverse background in agriculture, and track record of success, is a perfect fit for the rapidly scaling Phytelligence, which is readying for its biggest year yet. Zenk also brings deep experience working with USDA, NDRC and other public sector and agriculture entities.

Of high value to the overall Phytelligence mission is his noted expertise in commercializing new agriculture platforms to produce high value proteins and renewable fuels, done working alongside leading investors, Cascade Investment, ARCH Venture Partners, Venrock, Wellcome Family Trust, Reliance Industries and BioFields.

"I am very excited to be part of the team to ensure Phytelligence achieves their global expansion goals," commented Zenk. "Phytelligence has a treasure trove of technologies from core products, producing the worlds highest quality and most productive fruit trees, berries, and nuts, to our portfolio of agriculture compounds and chemicals being commercialized in our lab.  As an aside, I'm especially looking forward to working collaboratively with our partners at my alma mater Washington State University, right in Pullman, Washington."

Zenk added that the goal is to help growers throughout the life cycle of their crops, and directly, positively improve their ROI and the quality of the products they produce and sell. Whether it's producing the most advanced rootstocks, disease and virus free plant material, or agricultural compounds to improve taste and quality, or its advanced genetic portfolio of fruit varieties, Phytelligence focuses on growers needs by developing solutions to their most urgent challenges in specialty crop agriculture.

Currently in the development pipeline, Phytelligence is spearheading the expansion of the pear market by developing new pear and cherry varieties. To improve the markets for pears, the company has developed compounds to help them ripen after they're delivered to consumers. In addition, Phytelligence scientists are developing new rootstocks and varieties that are drought resilient, and resistant to many agriculture disease and viruses.

About Phytelligence

Phytelligence (http://www.phytelligence.com) is an agricultural biotechnology company that is revolutionizing food crops. Utilizing its proprietary growing techniques to provide superior quality crops, Phytelligence enables higher grower profit by increasing speed to harvest while reducing input costs. Phytelligence provides additional value to food crop growers and plant breeders through the application of advanced genetics enabling 100-percent guaranteed delivery of accurate plants, disease screening, plant repository services, securing of intellectual property, and the ability to co-develop new varieties of food crops. In addition, Phytelligence has a growing pipeline of biological and compound solutions aimed at improving returns throughout the food crop value chain.

Phytelligence was founded by Dr. Amit Dhingra in 2012 out of his Horticulture Genomics and Biotechnology Research laboratory at Washington State University and is headquartered in Seattle with offices in Pullman, Washington and Portland, Oregon.  In 2016, Phytelligence expanded their footprint including securing an 8-acre Seattle-based greenhouse space and a Portland-based tissue culture lab. Currently, Phytelligence has 50 employees with immediate plans to continue hiring in the near future.