Staff Report

A Charleston-based biotech company that specializes in environmentally friendly fertilizer has entered a distribution agreement with Driscoll Farms in Rosebud, Texas.

The agreement, along with an e-commerce site and direct sales through Johns Island and Mount Pleasant retail locations, expands the reach of Surya Biofertilizers.

The startup company, led by Jonathan Butler, co-founder of Automated Trading Desk, sells environmentally safe soil-conditioning fertilizers. He located Surya’s headquarters in Charleston and started operations in October.

“It’s exciting to work with a Charleston-based company operating at the forefront of green nonoil-based fertilizer technology,” said John Royall, president of Royall Ace Hardware in Mount Pleasant, which, along with Ravenswood Plantation Sod Farm on Johns Island, now offers Surya products.

The company’s distribution agreement with Driscoll Farms will supply biofertilizer products to four counties in Texas, the company said in a statement.

“We are seeing the demand for organic fertilizers rise dramatically in Texas,” said Arthur Driscoll, president of Driscoll Farms. “Through my research on alternative solutions to chemical fertilizers, combined with conversations with the company, I believe Surya’s proven all-natural products are the future of sustainable agriculture.”

Butler, the chief investor in Surya Biofertilizers, said the company’s e-commerce portal and retail offerings allow the company to respond to increased interest in the company’s products, which are marketed as a replacement for traditional chemical-based fertilizers.

“Until our products are readily available to customers through a planned, comprehensive retail and distributor network, we will offer Surya Biofertilizers for direct order at a very competitive price,” Butler said.

Article by Andy Owens
aowens@scbiznews.com

Jonathan Butler has fond memories of visiting his family’s farm in Orangeburg County. The Charleston entrepreneur drew on this experience when an opportunity presented itself to invest in a green company that could help rural areas of South Carolina with an environmentally sound product.

The co-founder of one of Charleston’s high-tech success stories now owns an interest in a soil conditioning fertilizer company and has located the company’s headquarters in Charleston.

“The introduction of clean and green technologies is the next wave of entrepreneurship."
Jonathan Butler

Butler, the co-founder of Automated Trading Desk, which Citigroup purchased last year for more than $600 million in cash and stock, said he wanted to remove himself from the software development cycle and do something a little different.

“The introduction of clean and green technologies is the next wave of entrepreneurship,” Butler said.

Butler joined the board of the Charleston Digital Corridor Foundation, which acted as matchmaker between him and the company that developed the organic fertilizer. The product has been sold overseas for years but had no North American distribution, sales or product placement.

“My obligation is to align all those different issues in such a way that’s going to take us to the promised land,” said Ernest Andrade, Charleston digital Corridor director. “We’re more actively incubating this idea.”

He said the city of Charleston has made a specific commitment to facilitate clean industries such as Surya Biofertilizers.

“It’s all really come together through the Charleston Digital Corridor,” Butler said. “We’re dealing with an established product. It’s a product that’s been sold, just not sold here.”

The company has three organic fertilizer and soil-conditioning products that it markets as environmentally friendly and cost-effective, providing benefits beyond just being green.

Commercial organic fertilizers have been available for a long time, but a cost-effective method that allows higher yields has been elusive in the United States, the company said in a statement.

Butler said he has a waiting list of people who want to invest in Surya, including family members, but he’s taking the approach he learned at ATD.

“I’m very risk-averse, and I don’t just jump into anything without researching it,” Butler said. “We’re being very cautious. We don’t want to overexpand. We’ll probably follow the ATD track of underexpanding.”

He said the company is still developing partnerships and distribution agreements to implement a retail launch, but the company’s products are for sale through Surya Biofertilizers’ Web site.

Andrade said the company is working with 15 customers right now who are serving as testers for the product, including engineers, farmers, water quality professionals and homeowners. Surya’s products have been tested and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In line with its plan for slow growth, the company plans to add two to three jobs in the Charleston area in the next year to facilitate product placement.

Butler said the company plans to eventually build a manufacturing facility in one of the state’s more rural counties that could benefit from such a plant. His family owns land in Orangeburg County, but he said he has no definite plans for where such a plant would be located because many variables still exist.

“A clean, green technology is the focus,” Butler said. “This is really something that’s going to be long-term. This is something I want my kids to be involved in.”

Article by John P. McDermott

A new agrarian business venture could be an anecdote straight out of “The World is Flat,” Tom Friedman’s opus on the increasingly entangled and competitive nature of the global economy.

The fledgling enterprise took root in the Meeting Street offices of Ernest Andrade, director of the city’s Charleston Digital Corridor initiative. While brainstorming ways to bolster the local life-science industry, a Medical University of South Carolina employee mentioned that his scientist father in India had harnessed his biotech skills to develop an all-natural pathogen-free line of fertilizers that enhances soil conditions.

Made from sterilized cellulose materials and Red Wriggler worm casings, the liquid concentrate has been available in the Mideast and Asia for more than decade. But it had not yet cracked into the North American market.

Andrade said that conversation made him think of Jonathan Butler, who was on his organization’s board. A co-founder of Automated Trading Desk, which uses sophisticated computer programs to buy and sell stocks, Butler had left as chief technology officer after the Mount Pleasant-based company was sold to Citigroup last year for $637 million.

“He’d expressed interest in ‘green’ technologies,” Andrade said.

Long story short, after more than a year of methodical planning, the 40-something Butler last week completed the first round of financing, including his own money and funds from other local investors, to launch Surya Biofertilizers LLC. The company goes to his belief that “the introduction of clean and green technologies is the next wave of entrepreneurship.”

But, he added: “It has to be cautious approach.”

That’s not surprising given the time he spent at ATD, a firm that has thrived on its prudent handling of risk. So Butler set out to quantify the pitfalls as best he could. For example, he had the biofertilizer scientifically analyzed and tested against synthetic versions to compare crop yields and other attributes. He liked the results. He also determined it could compete on price against chemical brands and “jumped through all kinds of hoops” with regulators, including the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s not like, ’We’re going to take a chance on this and see what happens,’ " he said. “We’re really staging this.”

Butler’s interest in what goes into the soil can be traced to a farm his family owns near Santee. It was reinforced by a stint working at Abide-a-While Garden Center in Mount Pleasant.

Now that it’s funded, Surya — the Indian term for “sun” — plans to start beating the bushes to build a distribution network in North America. It hopes one day to grow to the point that it would make financial sense to manufacture the liquid in Charleston instead of importing it.

Samples are now being used at 15 sites, including Ravenswood Plantation Sod Farm on Johns Island.

The company sees home improvement stores, backyard gardeners and golf courses as natural customers.

“It’s a huge variety,” Butler said.

Article by Andy Owens

The co-founder of one of Charleston’s high-tech success stories has invested in a soil-conditioning fertilizer company and has located the company’s headquarters in Charleston.

Jonathan Butler, co-founder of Automated Trading Desk, which was purchased by Citigroup last year for more than $600 million in cash and stock, said he wanted to remove himself from the software development cycle and do something different.

“The introduction of clean and green technologies is the next wave of entrepreneurship,” he said.

Butler is a member of the board of the Charleston Digital Corridor Foundation, which acted as a matchmaker between him and the company that developed the organic fertilizer. The products were successfully sold overseas for years but had no North American distribution, sales or placement.

“My obligation is to align all those different issues in such a way that’s going to take us to the promised land,” said Ernest Andrade, Charleston Digital Corridor director. “We’re more actively incubating this idea.”

Andrade said the city of Charleston has made a specific commitment to facilitate clean industries such as Surya Biofertilizers.

“It’s all really come together through the Charleston Digital Corridor,” Butler said. “We’re dealing with an established product. It’s a product that’s been sold, just not sold here.”

Butler said he has a waiting list of people who want to invest in Surya, including family members, but he’s taking an approach he learned at ATD.

“I’m very risk-averse, and I don’t just jump into anything without researching it,” Butler said. “We’re being very cautious. We don’t want to overexpand. We’ll probably follow the ATD track of underexpanding.”

He said the company is still developing partnerships and distribution agreements to implement a retail launch, but the company’s products are for sale now through Surya Biofertilizer’s website.

The company plans to add two to three jobs in the Charleston area in the next year to facilitate product placement, and eventually plans to build a manufacturing facility in one of the state’s more rural counties.

“A clean, green technology is the focus,” Butler said. “This is really something that’s going to be long term. This is something I want my kids to be involved in.”