International investors have put a $15 million round of venture capital into West Sacramento-based agricultural technology company Biome Makers Inc., which is developing sustainable farming techniques through a multidisciplinary approach to soil science.
The Series B round was led by Prosus Ventures of Cape Town, South Africa.
“Biome Makers has created a truly innovative offering, which comes from the founders’ deep expertise and passion to work in agriculture and soil health,” said Banafsheh Fathieh, head of Americas Investments at Prosus Ventures, in a news release.
Other investors in the round include Seaya Ventures FCR of Madrid; Viking Global Investors LP of Greenwich, Connecticut; JME Venture Capital of Madrid; and Pymwymic of Amsterdam.
Biome Makers launched in San Francisco in 2015, and in 2018 became the first tenant of the Bayer Crop Science CoLaborator research and wet lab space in West Sacramento.
The company uses genetics, software engineering, microbiology, agronomy and data science to help farmers monitor soil health by measuring microbiome health in soil. The company takes soil samples from customers and sequences the microbes living in them, which helps growers better gauge soil health and apply products more precisely, CEO Adrian Ferrero has said.
Technology company funding tracker Crunchbase.com said that from 2015 through 2020, Biome Makers had raised a total of $8.4 million over six funding rounds.
Over the past few years, Biome Makers has developed proprietary products BeCrop and Gheom. BeCrop is a smart agriculture genetic soil assessment collection kit. Gheom measures the effectiveness of soil inputs such as fertilizers and crop protection products.
The company said the new funds will go toward its next phase of growth, accelerating the global expansion of BeCrop for soil analysis and soil health recovery. The investment will also be used to expand the use of Gheom.
Company spokesman Jim Rueff said via email that the company will be hiring more employees in the Sacramento region.
