St. Louis

St. Louis has built a distinctive niche as a national center for agtech and bioscience, anchored by Bayer's North American crop science headquarters and a deep ecosystem of agriculture-focused investors including Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Cultivation Capital. The region's M&A activity splits between mature, cash-flow-positive agribusiness and industrial manufacturing acquisitions favored by private equity, and an earlier-stage venture pipeline of agtech and plant science startups commercializing out of Washington University and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. St. Louis's broader middle market benefits from a diversified base of financial services, healthcare, and industrial distribution companies, supported by an active community of regional investment banks and family-backed PE firms like Thompson Street Capital Partners. 

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