Stories of Activate Fellows and alumni turning scientific breakthroughs into hard-tech impact.
Semion (Victoria Coll Araoz, Cohort 2025) is using science to solve a massive problem: pests and diseases increasingly threatening our global food supply, and the toxic (and uneconomical) pesticides farmers currently use to combat them.
These tiny insects and microbes cause outsized damage. For example, the corn leafhopper, a bug about the size of a sesame seed, is wreaking havoc on corn production in South America; in Brazil alone, it caused $6.5B in losses each year between 2020 and 2024 and a 19% increase in insecticide use. Now, concern is growing as it spreads upward through the United States, where corn is a $70.1B industry.
Meanwhile, Florida’s citrus industry has declined by 95% over the past 20 years because of citrus greening disease, first detected there in 2005—causing 47,000 jobs to disappear and $76.B in total losses.
Victoria Coll Araoz (Semion, Cohort 2025) has studied both of these threats in her career as a researcher. Now, as co-founder and chief science officer of Semion, she’s racing to deploy a solution for these and other crop-destroying pests and diseases.
Semion takes an unexpected approach to crop protection—it doesn’t kill pests or genetically modify plants. Instead, Semion uses natural compounds to “reawaken plants’ own defense mechanisms” that have gone silent during the process of domestication, significantly boosting plants’ resilience to biotic stressors.
“Most of these defense mechanisms are plant odors that mediate interactions,” Coll Araoz explained. “When a pest is about to feed or lay eggs on a plant, it basically smells the plant and decides whether it's a suitable host or not. I make the plant produce odors that not only repel the pest but attract the natural enemies of the pest.”
Semion’s first product protects corn with a spray that’s cheaper than insecticides and applied to leaves using regular farm equipment. Semion plans to expand to rice, cane sugar, and citrus, proving that its platform technology can work across vastly different plants.
As threats increase, Coll Araoz believes Semion could offer one of the fastest deployable solutions to ensure agricultural resilience.
“If our technology reaches its full potential within a very short timeframe, we will be able to significantly reduce pesticide use. And that increases biodiversity and, of course, makes the food that we eat a lot healthier,” she said. “So I believe it can have a huge impact soon.”
Coll Araoz and her team recently made a significant technological breakthrough that gets them even closer to that vision. We spoke with Coll Araoz about what this breakthrough means for Semion, and we learned about her journey as a scientist-turned-founder with a global team.
What made you decide to become an entrepreneur?
When I started school, I felt like I totally belonged. Doing my Ph.D. research was super exciting, and I remember those as very, very happy years.
I continued scaling the career ladder, going through all these academic stages—a Fulbright fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship—until I got a permanent post-professor position, which was a huge milestone.
But at some point, I thought that maybe writing papers wasn't enough for me anymore. I saw so much more potential for my research.
I went through breast cancer a few years ago, and that was a turning point. I started thinking about what made my life meaningful. I decided I had enough titles and I wanted to do something with actual impact for my community, agriculture, and society. Founding Semion was the natural next step.
A friend of mine recommended applying to the Activate Fellowship. I didn't get it the first time. But when I applied the second time, I got in, and it’s been awesome. The best part is it's fellow-centered. They really take care of you, including your mental health. Because being an entrepreneur is hard. It's not a full-time job—it's a full-life job. Without the fellowship, there’s no support like it elsewhere.
Being an entrepreneur is hard. It's not a full-time job—it's a full-life job.
What are some of Semion’s results so far?
I always like to show this picture of my co-founder Jorge standing next to non-treated versus treated corn because the difference is huge. You can see that the corn we treated is 30% taller than the non-treated one and the corn ears look a lot healthier and nicer.
So when corn plants are under attack by the corn leafhopper, you can lose up to 100% of your current production. We were able to demonstrate that plants under attack, when treated with our solution, can yield up to 40% more, with an average of 30% more. And even if these plants aren't under attack or have very low pest level infestations, we can increase yield by 7%.
We were able to demonstrate that plants under attack, when treated with our solution, can yield up to 40% more, with an average of 30% more.
And this is not only applicable for the corn leafhopper, but with other corn pests as well. We're showing that the plants we treat are a lot more tolerant to biotic stressors in general.
What milestone are you celebrating?
This major breakthrough was probably made possible, in large part, by the Activate Fellowship. Moving to the U.S. and taking on more of a management and leadership role forced me to rely more on my technical team, and as a result, we have become much more creative in the way we work together. By stepping away from so much of the hands-on work, I also gained more time to think deeply about the science and explore new directions. That led me to bring on Santiago Romoli, a chemical engineer with experience in the pharmaceutical industry, who has helped us push the science further and approach the problem from a completely different perspective.
As a scientist-turned-founder, what has changed for you since reaching that milestone?
Hitting that milestone has given me a lot more confidence when we pitch to investors, because I am super convinced that we can do this. I have the confidence to say: I understand the mechanism and it can be translated into a practical solution in a very short time. You don't have to wait for a GMO plant to come on the market. We can do it now.
I'm not a good liar—I can’t pitch something that I don't believe in. To prove my point, I always say I was willing to risk it all to do this. I resigned from my permanent position as a researcher. I gave up my comfort. Obviously, I really believe in the technology and the pathway I’ve chosen. And this tech breakthrough has given me even more conviction.
I was willing to risk it all to do this. I resigned from my permanent position as a researcher. Obviously, I really believe in the technology and the pathway I’ve chosen. And this breakthrough has given me even more conviction.
Coming from Argentina to the United States, why did you choose the Activate Houston community?
Texas has both corn and citrus, and is huge in agriculture in general. So it made total sense for me to be here. We have some research projects with Texas A&M thanks to being located close to College Station, and being here also brings exposure to investors.
Having a presence here in the U.S. also opened up a lot of collaborations. Now my advisors are the founder of the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology, and I work with very, very cool researchers at the University of Florida, and one of the biggest experts in citrus greening disease.
Meanwhile, most of my team is based in Argentina, and they go back and forth very often. We need a lot of space, and even though Texas is big, we do have a lab there and greenhouses and field sites that we take advantage of. One of my main goals was to be able to do experiments year round, because when it's winter in Argentina, we can run experiments here and vice versa. It made a lot of sense to be in both hemispheres to accelerate research.
During the last year, I realized we needed to be more present in Brazil as well. So even though I speak Spanish, of course, I'm learning Portuguese as fast as I can to be able to communicate with growers in Brazil. We have been traveling to São Paulo and other states in Brazil very often.
What does success look like for you and your team in the next year?
We want to validate this new breakthrough in the field, and doing that will be a huge milestone for us that will take us to the next level. At the same time, we want to launch the product we have ready for corn right away. So signing an agreement with an agtech company that can scale this solution and take it to market is another big milestone that we are approaching. Those are the two major inflection points that we believe are going to make us big.
How have you grown in your first year of the fellowship?
When I started the Activate Fellowship, I would have been super scared to speak to the corporations I'm speaking to now. It’s been a process of self-realization and also a process of gaining confidence in myself as an entrepreneur.
As a scientist, you always want to wait for all the data and all the facts. But as a founder, you have to take risks, and that's something that I realized during the Activate Fellowship. You have to move faster, because as a small startup, that's the one advantage you have over corporations.
I'm not losing my scientific credibility or scientific background, but I'm taking more calculated risks toward the goals that I need to hit.
Also, my communication skills have evolved tremendously thanks to the Activate Fellowship. If I look at the deck I presented at the demo day only one year ago, I'm like, there's no way I defended this. I know what the investor or what the public wants to see, and I know how to communicate the science a lot more effectively.
What would you tell a young female researcher thinking about making the leap into entrepreneurship?
I always feel like I'm about to jump to this big, great Grand Canyon. I cannot see the bottom of it. And that’s a feeling I've actually learned to like.
I always feel like I'm about to jump to this big, great Grand Canyon. I cannot see the bottom of it. And that’s a feeling I've actually learned to like.
This job means resigning a lot of comfort and stability. At the same time it's very rewarding, and I’d say it's worth the bet. Even if it goes wrong, it would still be worth it because I will have learned so much. And even if I decided I wanted to go back to academia, now I understand what the industry needs and I could do science that is a lot more impactful.
Of course, I'd love to persevere as an entrepreneur. That is my number one goal. But I've learned during this process to make peace with the uncertainty and the adrenaline that comes with it.
Who should reach out to you right now?
We’re more than happy to talk with anyone willing to help us succeed and bring this to market. Agtech companies interested in testing our product for corn, which is ready. Growers in North and South America. VCs that invest in companies like ours or want to know more about our technology.
We're always fundraising—and it’s an exciting time because we're just crossing the bridge to validate our latest breakthrough that I mentioned