Former Purdue DIAL Ventures and Serial Startup Veteran Tim Dixon to Focus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Joins AgriNovus Senior Leadership Team

INDIANAPOLIS – June 16, 2026 – AgriNovus Indiana, an initiative to grow the agbioscience economy, announced today Tim Dixon as its new senior director of innovation – a role charged with accelerating startup and entrepreneurial activity in the state.Dixon joins the AgriNovus team after more than 30 years of experience in the startup space and will lead the organization’s efforts to accelerate commercial innovation and company creation, building coalitions across industry, academia, capital providers, governments, non-profits and donors to drive awareness around the need for agbioscience innovation and the momentum growing around the state.“Tim brings to the AgriNovus team a unique mix of startup experience, strategic vision and a deep understanding of transforming big ideas into real-world impact,” said Christy Wright, president and CEO of AgriNovus Indiana. “As Indiana accelerates its position as a global leader in agbioscience, Tim’s experience will enable entrepreneurial activity, new company creation and strengthen ties across industry, academia and capital providers that are critical to our sector’s growth.”Prior to AgriNovus, Dixon served as managing director of Purdue DIAL Ventures, where he fostered an ecosystem of corporate partners, successful entrepreneurs, startup investors and leaders in academic research to create companies that bring novel solutions to market to improve the global food supply.

DIAL’s venture studio employed an entrepreneur-first approach, resulting in the launch of 10 new companies in its first three years. Dixon also led Doyen Analytics, a human capital diligence firm, and InterOptic, a high-tech company backed by Pritzker Ventures that delivers high-speed optical networking solutions.

Earlier in his career, Dixon held various roles at startups and Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley, Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Europe, launching multiple multibillion-dollar data center products and raising more than $300 million in startup funding and private equity investment.

He serves as a business mentor for the Mandela Washington Fellowship and is a prefect and board member of the Indiana chapter of the Tripoli Rocketry Association. Dixon holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University and a master’s degree in quantitative psychology from Ball State University.

Dixon will lead AgriNovus’ cornerstone innovation program, Velocity, an accelerator guided by research that focuses in three critical agbioscience areas: bioinnovation, farmer-focused innovation and food is health. Velocity culminates with a demo day event and three $25,000 cash prizes for each track winner.

The next Velocity accelerator will kick off in mid-July. Companies, individuals and entrepreneurs who want to apply to participate can access more information here.

To learn more about the AgriNovus team, visit AgriNovusIndiana.com/team.