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The agricultural technology firm has shed workers, moved out of its shiny headquarters building and filed for bankruptcy, but it isn’t likely to disappear. The company expects to emerge from Chapter 11 proceedings by early June, probably with new owners and a new name.

Expedition Ag Partners, a private equity firm backed by local investor Hermann Cos., is part of a group that lent $11 million to Benson Hill during bankruptcy and submitted a “stalking horse� bid, which would give it right of first refusal to buy the company’s assets.

“We are really hopeful that we’ll be the successful bidder at discharge,� said Mike DeCamp, Expedition Ag’s president and chief executive. The group also includes S2G Investments of Chicago, ProAg Invest and Steve Kahn.

If the bid succeeds, DeCamp said his group would change Benson Hill’s name and take a hard look at expenses. The company already has slashed costs, including a move of its offices from a 5-year-old Creve Coeur headquarters into a nearby crop accelerator building. The staff is down to 68 people, from 350 in 2021.

“There’s a little bit more work that needs to be done,� DeCamp said. “We’re having conversations with management around that.�

He said the company, once flush with cash as it raised $283 million in venture capital and then went public at a valuation of $1.35 billion, needs to think like a scrappy startup again.

When Benson Hill went public in 2021, it seemed well beyond the startup stage. It had acquired facilities to process soybeans and yellow peas, and touted its high-protein crops as an essential ingredient for the growing meat-replacement industry.

Several factors would dampen the high hopes. Benson Hill went public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company, but it did so just as such deals were falling out of favor. Investor redemptions cut into the cash proceeds and the market became suspicious of SPAC companies.

Meanwhile, plant-based protein companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat began to struggle. Benson Hill’s target market was shrinking, not growing.

Then the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, causing investors to rethink the value of companies that were years from profitability. By early this year, Benson Hill’s market capitalization was under $10 million.

Carter Williams is CEO of iSelect Fund, an early Benson Hill investor. He said the company got some things right: Humans around the world want to eat more protein and Benson Hill’s technology – backed by 359 patents issued or pending – can deliver it.

“I don’t necessarily think we got the technology wrong,� Williams said. “We got the timing wrong.�

Benson Hill has sold its processing plants, gone to an “asset light� strategy and set its sights on the animal-feed market. It has announced successful trials with such companies as Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms.

“The proof of concept has been satisfied,� DeCamp said. “The way we would think about it is a two- or three-year period to get to break-even or better.�

Will this high-profile bankruptcy hurt St. Louis’ efforts to build an ag-tech industry? Jim McCarter, senior managing director of Biogenerator Ventures, doesn’t think so.

For one thing, he said, many of the scientists who left Benson Hill have found jobs at other St. Louis firms. For another, the area’s low costs continue to attract startups from the East and West coasts.

“When one company does have a setback, there are other opportunities for investors with that technology,� McCarter said. “Ag tech continues to be an area of strength and a differentiator for St. Louis.�

David Nicklaus is a retired Post-Dispatch columnist who continues to follow the St. Louis business scene.