An environmental analytics firm in Chapel Hill has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to give people insight into what's on their dinner plate.
Mesur.io has what its website describes as a platform that “automatically calibrates to microclimates,” leveraging existing data streams to allow users to be more conscientious with their resources. Armed with a recently-closed $850,000, the firm is planning growth.
CEO Tom Rump said the company focuses on sustainability in food and agriculture as well as turf management across the supply chain.
“Don’t you really like to know, when you put dinner on your table, how it was grown, is it healthy?” he told TBJ. Its analytics platform can provide “at-the-farm level insight” to make sure farms are using chemicals – from fertilizers to pesticides – correctly. And it can also help users maximize their use of resources by applying climate environmental data, he said.
“We’re then able to help them when they move through the supply chain with verifiable credentials,” he said. “It’s more about the end user, the consumer, being able to know that their products were sustainably grown.”
The platform's customers are primarily the crop protection companies themselves, he said.
While Rump declined to provide specific figures, he said 2020 revenue was double that of 2019. And the firm is on track to double again in 2021, he said. With the raise, the 10-person firm will be hiring technology talent. Rump estimates that the fundraise will give the firm a 12- to 18-month runway.
The company was founded by farmer-turned-entrepreneur Mike Prorock, who bought a farm in Chapel Hill in hopes of leveraging environmental data to be successful and sustainable. When he realized no such platform existed, he created Mesur.io.
The latest raise follows a $750,000 round that closed in 2018 and a $775,000 raise that closed last year, filings show.
