Former TPG partner Bill McGlashan, once praised for the $2 billion Rise fund, emerged from a three‑month prison stint for his role in the Varsity Blues scheme. Determined to rehabilitate his reputation, he unveiled Oath, a San Francisco‑based startup that sells a white powder of microscopic organisms designed to boost crop yields while slashing water and fertilizer use in the global market.

At a soil‑science summit in Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan, McGlashan convened two dozen leading researchers to vet Oath’s field trials. Early data suggest the formulation can raise coffee and soybean outputs and sequester carbon, but McGlashan pressed the scientists to prove the model is “financeable.” His insistence that profitability match environmental financial long‑term impact signals a classic private‑equity play applied to agritech.

The scandal stripped McGlashan of more than $100 million in compensation and ended his tenure at TPG, yet he retained enough capital to fund Oath’s pilot programs. By positioning the venture as both a climate solution and a significant revenue generator, he hopes to attract future impactful investors wary of his past. Success would turn a disgraced financier into a profitable steward of soil health.