Barnwell Bio brings COVID-era biosurveillance technology to poultry farming after raising $6 million

Barnwell Bio, a US-based agtech startup founded by former wastewater surveillance specialists, has raised $6 million in seed funding to adapt its COVID-era biosurveillance technology to the poultry industry, with the goal of helping producers detect emerging disease threats earlier and manage flock health more proactively. The round was led by Twelve Below, and the company will initially deploy its platform in poultry barns across the Midwest and Southeast of the United States, a region central to American poultry production, according to AgFunderNews.

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in New York, Barnwell Bio applies metagenomic sequencing—a method that analyzes genetic material from entire microbial communities—to poultry barn environments. Instead of testing individual birds for specific pathogens, the company collects environmental samples that reflect the overall microbial ecosystem within a facility. This approach enables the early detection of disease risks before clinical symptoms appear, a capability that could significantly reduce economic losses and improve biosecurity in a sector highly exposed to outbreaks such as avian influenza.

The company was founded by Michael Rhys (CEO), Casey McGinley (COO), and Jake Byrnes (CSO), who previously worked together at Biobot Analytics, a firm known for building wastewater monitoring systems used during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide early warnings of viral outbreaks. Barnwell Bio’s core idea is to transfer that same logic—from community-level human health surveillance to whole-barn intelligence in animal agriculture.

Rather than swabbing animals directly, Barnwell Bio collects samples from barn floors, where material from bird foot traffic captures fecal matter and other biological residues. These samples allow the company to map bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses present in the environment, creating what it calls a “microbiome fingerprint” unique to each facility. By tracking changes in this fingerprint over time, the platform can alert producers to imbalances that may signal an emerging health issue.

“In our team’s experience scaling wastewater monitoring during the pandemic, we saw how powerful early indicators can be,” said McGinley, according to AgFunderNews. “By shifting the focus from individual sick birds to the entire environment, we can identify pathogen spikes weeks before they turn into a crisis.”

The data generated through sequencing is translated into risk scores and visual dashboards, making the information actionable for producers, veterinarians, and feed additive suppliers. According to Rhys, early detection enables a range of preventive responses, from tightening biosecurity protocols to adjusting nutrition strategies or water additives. The emphasis, however, is on proactive flock management, rather than reacting once disease has already spread.

Barnwell Bio’s approach also allows producers to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. By monitoring how microbial populations respond to probiotics, litter amendments, or management changes, the system provides evidence-based feedback that is often missing in traditional poultry health programs. In one early deployment, the company detected that a probiotic litter amendment produced only a short-lived increase in beneficial bacteria but unexpectedly reduced Staphylococcus levels for about a week. That insight led the customer to redesign how and when the additive was used.

Beyond disease detection, the startup sees significant value in benchmarking performance across facilities. By comparing microbiome profiles of high-performing and low-performing barns, Barnwell Bio aims to uncover patterns linked to productivity, resilience, and overall flock health. Over time, this growing dataset could become a strategic asset for the industry.

One of the most critical applications of the technology is avian influenza surveillance, a persistent threat to the egg and poultry sectors in the US. Barnwell Bio has received a grant from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) to develop an RNA-based platform capable of detecting avian flu variants at an early stage. This would allow producers to understand not only whether the virus is present, but also which variants are circulating within a specific facility.

According to Rhys, variant-level surveillance could have far-reaching implications, including insights into future vaccine strategies if poultry vaccination becomes more widespread. Even in the absence of vaccines, early and precise information helps companies prioritize resources and deploy biosecurity measures more efficiently. “In an ideal world, biosecurity would be perfect all the time,” he noted, “but in reality, that’s extremely difficult and expensive.”

The company’s early traction has been supported by partnerships with Mississippi State University, meat and poultry processor West Liberty Foods, and egg producer Vital Farms, among others. These collaborations provide both validation and real-world environments to refine the technology before broader commercialization.

Investors backing the seed round see strong potential in the company’s data-driven approach. While livestock agriculture has traditionally been underrepresented in venture capital portfolios, Barnwell Bio’s ability to generate a unique, high-value biological dataset was a key factor in attracting funding. As artificial intelligence and machine learning become increasingly important in agriculture, large-scale microbiome data sets are expected to gain strategic importance.

In addition to Twelve Below, the seed round included Max Ventures, Dorm Room Fund, Banter Capital, Planeteer Capital, AgVentures Alliance, Daybreak Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. Investors were also drawn to the scalability of the platform, which could eventually be adapted to other livestock sectors beyond poultry.

Barnwell Bio’s initial focus remains firmly on poultry, a sector where disease outbreaks can spread rapidly and have immediate economic consequences. However, the company has made clear that its long-term vision extends to broader applications in animal agriculture. By combining environmental sampling, advanced sequencing, and predictive analytics, the startup aims to redefine how health risks are monitored and managed at the farm level.

As global concerns about food security, biosecurity, and animal health intensify, technologies that provide earlier and more precise signals of risk are gaining attention. Barnwell Bio’s bet is that what worked for public health during the COVID-19 pandemic can now be repurposed to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of modern poultry production.