Sound Agriculture Announces Adam Litle as Chief Executive Officer

Leadership Expansion Supports Company Evolution in Sustainable Food and Agriculture Solutions

Emeryville, CA (April 16, 2020) - Sound Agriculture is pleased to announce the appointment of Adam Litle as Chief Executive Officer. Litle brings years of experience as a senior executive in the food, ag and biotech space, making him well positioned to support the company as it continues to develop novel crop products that serve evolving producer and consumer preferences.

Litle joins Sound Agriculture from Granular, an agtech company that developed the leading farm management software worldwide. As a member of Granular's founding team, Litle played an integral role in leading the company from inception to acquisition by DuPont (now Corteva).

While there, Litle led a number of functions including sales, customer success, marketing, business development, finance and operations. Most recently, Litle served as Granular's SVP Revenue and was a member of Corteva's Global Leadership Team.

Prior, Litle held general management and corporate development roles at Codexis, a biotechnology company serving the life science and food industries. He began his career as an investment banker at Barclays Capital, working on M&A and debt/equity financings in the healthcare sector.

"I'm thrilled to join Sound Agriculture to further the development of a more sustainable and differentiated food system for both producers and consumers," says Litle. "Farmers are looking for products that boost yield and save money in ways that protect the environment. Consumers increasingly want food with better taste, nutrition and sustainability profiles. Sound's platform sits at the intersection of that, evolving traits much faster than traditional plant breeding without the use of genetic modification."

Sound Agriculture was started six years ago by Eric Davidson, PhD, and Travis Bayer, PhD. After building a reputation for science-based excellence in product development, the company is poised for growth and ready to broaden the team's leadership expertise. Davidson will transition from his current role as CEO to a newly formed leadership role as Chief Administrative Officer.

"After years of hard work, we have a product in the market, an expanding portfolio and exciting new opportunities in front of us," Davidson says. "Our latest product, Source, is a biostimulant that is applied in-season and can drive an additional 8-10 bushels of corn per acre by improving nitrogen and phosphorus uptake. We're just getting it to market and are excited to have Adam take us to the next level."

"Eric and Travis have done an excellent job building an extremely innovative team that is driven by creativity and purpose, focused on improving the way our food is grown and produced," says Ron Meeusen, Chairman of Sound Agriculture's Board of Directors and Managing Director at Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. "With Adam's experience building successful companies in agriculture and elsewhere, he's the ideal leader to help us grow."

Sound Agriculture uses the power of science to design reliable and effective tools that enable sustainability across the agriculture value chain. Breakthrough discoveries about plant and environmental interactions have led to cutting-edge tools that tackle some of today's biggest agriculture challenges. Sound's first product, Source™, helps plants access existing nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil to provide in-season nutrition. Source provides a more economical, sustainable and environmentally sound solution for crop productivity. Learn more at soundagriculture.com and follow @sound_ag on Twitter.