InnerPlant, the Davis-based seed technology company that monitors crop health from satellites, raised $30 million to expand field tests and for seed development.
The funding round was led by Canadian farming company Coutts Agro Ltd., which put together an alliance of North American farmers for the investment, along with previous investors farm equipment giant John Deere, a subsidiary of Deere & Company (NYSE: DE), and San Francisco-based Bison Ventures.
“We’re very proud that this round is being led by the people who best understand what’s needed on the farm and what innovation in agriculture actually looks like,” said InnerPlant co-founder and CEO Shely Aronov, in a news release. “We’ve always put farmers at the center of everything we do, and this investment validates that farmer-centric culture and our technology."
A new investor in this round is London-based Systemiq Capital.
Crops with InnerPlant traits fluoresce when under stress, like fungal pressure or when they need water or nutrients. By using filters coupled with satellite or drone images, farmers can see problems quickly in the field.
InnerPlant validated its technology on tomatoes, but it's now exclusively focused on larger-scale commercial crops like soybeans. 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.
The InnerPlant traits are detectable from as far away as space, and the stress they identify can be found as much as three weeks before farmers can see early warning signs. The company tested its technology on soybeans in Argentina in the winter and it is now field testing in the Midwest, InnerPlant spokesman Sean Yokomizo said.
The company plans to expand its number of pilot plots over the next three years.
Founded in 2018, InnerPlant has 40 employees, most of them in labs and offices in Davis. Since its founding, the company has raised $54 million in funding rounds, and it has also won federal grants.
“Our family and our partners have been farming for several generations and this is the first time in decades that we’ve seen a technology that has the opportunity to increase the GDP created by agriculture and not merely redistributing the value,” said Coutts Agro Chief Investment Officer Matt Coutts, in a news release. “The ability of farmers to receive data about stress that’s tied directly to plant physiology fundamentally changes how farmers can manage crops, resulting in more durable profitability."
