Farm equipment giant John Deere has led a $16 million funding round into Davis-based InnerPlant, which has developed technology that allows plants to signal farmers optically about their condition.
InnerPlant strains visually signal farmers when the plants need water, nutrients or protection from pests, by using filters coupled with satellite or drone images to show problems quickly in the field.
“Our goal is to make it easier to farm,” InnerPlant CEO Shely Aronov told the Business Journal.
Using the visual technology, the company will assist farmers in applying protective measures “by the spoonful,” she said. Farmers currently apply protective measures to their entire fields, which is costly and inefficient, especially when only a few plants need attention, Aronov said.
InnerPlant was founded in 2018, and has 18 full-time employees. It has an 8,000-square-foot lab in Davis and greenhouses in Woodland.
“Our trait gives farmers the data they need to act early and specifically at the individual plant level, so they stop problems before they affect yields while using fewer chemicals,” Aronov said, in a news release.
The new money will go toward scaling InnerPlant’s technology on soybean field trials in 2023 with an eye toward a soft launch in 2024, said spokesman Sean Yokomizo.
The new round was led by John Deere with participation from existing investors, Menlo Park venture capital firm MS&AD Ventures, TAU Ventures of Tel Aviv, Israel, San Francisco-based Bee Partners LLC and Palo Alto-based UpWest.
John Deere is a subsidiary of Moline, Illinois-based Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE), a farm equipment and heavy construction machinery manufacturer.
Plants with InnerPlant traits fluoresce in lighter images whereas healthy plants remain dark, which allows smart equipment to pinpoint areas that need treatment. The InnerPlant strains allow farmers to see problems quickly in the field, rather than waiting several weeks to see damage.
The company’s first work will be focused on identifying fungal pressure on soybeans and protecting crops, Aronov said. The company’s technology will first be used on soybeans in the U.S., which will likely be followed by work in Brazil, where soybeans are a major crop, she said. The application of protection measures will be paired with smart equipment. In the large field applications, visuals will be provided by satellite images.
InnerPlant is also working on protecting plants from insect pressure using the same technology, and it's also working on identifying the need for nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen is a problem because it's expensive and tends to be over-applied, which causes harmful runoff to water systems.
InnerPlant will likely next move to corn crops.
The company's traits are genetically manufactured organisms, or GMO, but Aronov said that about 95% of soybeans are currently GMO, and 99% of them are GMO that are used for animal feed.
InnerPlant is working with a major seed company in developing its seed traits, though InnerPlant is not identifying the company.
InnerPlant validated its technology on tomatoes, but it's now exclusively focused on large-scale commercial crops rather than small-scale food crops, Aronov said.
“InnerPlant’s technology provides data directly from plants, which presents a unique opportunity for farmers to make an informed agronomic decision in the growing season to increase crop yield,” said Than Hartsock, director of John Deere’s Corn & Soybean Production Systems, in a news release. “We are excited to support InnerPlant and share a common vision of making farming more efficient and sustainable through plant-by-plant management."
This new funding brings the company to more than $22 million raised since its launch.
The protein that makes the plants fluoresce is part of the plant’s own natural defense system. It is long-studied and approved for food.
