Funding will advance data-driven agriculture via actionable soil insights
ARLINGTON, Va., January 18, 2023 – EarthOptics, a frontrunner in soil measurement and insights, at this time introduced a spherical of strategic investments from each current and new traders.
The $27.6 million spherical of funding, led by Conti Ventures, will additional construct out EarthOptics’ GroundOwl™ sensor suite capabilities, speed up acreage development and scale service suppliers. This improve in funding for product and repair choices to farmers and ranchers works to meet rising buyer demand.
Along with Conti Ventures, Rabo Meals & Ag Innovation Fund (RFAIF), CNH Industrial, Louis Dreyfus Firm Ventures, and CHS and Growmark’s Cooperative Ventures be a part of present EarthOptics traders Leaps by Bayer, FHB Ventures, S2G Ventures, iSelect Fund, Route 66 Ventures, and Middleland Capital’s VTC Ventures.
“We imagine EarthOptics has a transparent benefit in soil measurement know-how, as they enhance the scalability of measurement whereas serving to to cut back extrapolation error” stated Chris Abbott, Co-Head of Conti Ventures. “As we search for applied sciences that may confirm vital soil measurements for growers, we imagine EarthOptics stands out in offering agronomic worth as effectively as verification for initiatives like carbon credit.”
EarthOptics makes use of a mix of ground-based sensors, satellites, bodily soil samples, machine studying fashions and agronomic experience to assist farmers and ranchers make higher data-driven choices about their land. This groundbreaking know-how delivers insights to assist farmers optimize fertilizer functions, make knowledgeable tillage choices, quantify carbon sequestration and extra.
“Our industry-leading know-how has large potential for farmers and agribusiness,” Lars Dyrud, EarthOptics CEO, stated. “This funding will propel our development and allow us to scale the SoilMapper™ platform.”
The Sequence B funding will increase entry to precious instruments and ship hyper-accurate soil insights, offering speedy price financial savings for farmers, who acknowledge the significance of getting complete knowledge about their soil.
“The revival of curiosity in soil is very encouraging and far wanted. Given the elemental significance of soil well being to the meals and agriculture programs, we’re excited to assist Lars and his group in bringing EarthOptics’ actually disruptive answer to our financial institution’s world community of
farmers, corporates, as effectively our ecosystem providers groups of The Carbon Financial institution and ACORN,“ in response to Pieter van der Meche, Head of RFAIF.
“With small margins and unpredictable enter costs, farmers are on the lookout for methods to enhance productiveness,” Dyrud stated. “Our product does that in a method that matches seamlessly into particular person operations. Farmers now not should depend on costly soil evaluation from labs. Highly effective soil insights from EarthOptics can remodel the best way choices are made on the farm.”
“EarthOptics is a number one agriculture platform that precisely measures key points of soil well being,” in response to James Ramey of Middleland Capital’s VTC Ventures. “Starting from compaction ranges and vitamins via carbon sequestration, the corporate is completely positioned to ship robust ROI for growers whereas advancing local weather resilience initiatives.”
Just lately, the USDA introduced EarthOptics as a associate of their Local weather Sensible Partnership for six separate proposals. With this new momentum, EarthOptics continues to judge further partnerships and work.
The announcement comes on the heels of a profitable 2022 for EarthOptics, which noticed ten instances development in acres lined and partnerships with world meals corporations.
About EarthOptics
At EarthOptics, we see soil. In a different way. GroundTruth Ag, Inc., dba EarthOptics, was based in 2018 and has places of work in Raleigh, North Carolina; Arlington and Blacksburg, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Fayetteville, Arkansas. EarthOptics is an agricultural know-how firm growing next-generation soil-sensing applied sciences that give growers revolutionary insights into the bodily traits of their soil. EarthOptics beat out three finalists and greater than 100 worldwide agtech startup entries to win the AGCO Innovation Problem Award throughout the 2021 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit. We imagine that below-ground precision and innovation within the soil house is lengthy overdue. Our final aim is to ship point-of-care soil well being insights – associated to bodily, chemical, and organic attributes of soil – in actual time. To obtain this aim, now we have assembled a group with numerous backgrounds in engineering, software program improvement, geospatial analytics, knowledge science, machine studying, and logistics and operations.
About Conti Ventures
Conti Ventures is an funding group inside Continental Grain Firm and manages the funding car that’s main this spherical of financing. Conti Ventures makes enterprise capital and development fairness investments in early-stage companies which might be utilizing slicing‐edge know-how to outline the way forward for meals and agriculture. Continental Grain Firm (“Conti”) is a privately‐ owned world investor, proprietor and operator of corporations with greater than 200 years of historical past throughout the meals and agribusiness spectrum. Conti creates lengthy‐time period worth by making use of deep {industry} data, capital and expertise to companies starting from established market leaders to promising innovators. Visit www.continentalgrain.com to be taught extra.
