The Forward March of Agtech During a Pandemic
Jennifer Kite-Powell
Storyteller I Founder | Writer I Speculative poet | Tech journalist | Podcast host I Beekeeper
In 2018, investment in Agtech was up by 40% ringing in at $17 B. In a mid-year investment report by AgFunder, investment in Agtech was already at $8.8 B across 798 deals by June 2020.
Tech tools for farmers can range from software for soil analysis, monitoring and promoting effective plant and crop growth to collecting field maps and processing satellite images of land and crops.
On August 20, 2020, Seana Day, a partner at Better Food Ventures, told Crunchbase she estimates that global food and agriculture fund managers have around $130 B in assets under management and believe its driving a surge in investments.
Pivot Bio announced a $100 million funding round in April 2020; Geltor raised $91.3 M in July 2020. In August 2020, iFarm, a Finnish-startup, raised $4M for its indoor farming technology for growing greens, berries and vegetables.
Sound Agriculture, bio-inspired chemistry and plant development platform startup raised a $22 M Series C round in May 2020. The startup's first commercial product, SOURCE, triggers microbes in the soil to produce more nitrogen and phosphorus. This approach enables farmers to grow crops using fewer resources, which reduces the use of chemical-based fertilizers.
"Developing a more diverse set of crop solutions is essential to the success of growers, consumers, and the well being of the planet," said Adam Litle, CEO of Sound Agriculture.
Sound Agriculture says their plant breeding platform quickly evolves traits in plants/crops to improve the nutrition, taste and sustainability of food without gene modification. The company claims that faster plant breeding can increase our food systems' agility when faced with supply shocks.
According to Jonathan Henry, Managing Director of John Deere, UK and Ireland, the future farmer continues to turn to connected-devices to manage the field.
"Farmers are using telematics and connected machines to anticipate faults in machinery, maintain entire fleets and manage production," said Henry.
John Deere's Agtech farm service, Connected Support gives farmers, dealers and operators real-time information about their John Deere machinery operations and performance.
"Farmers might work with a dealer that manages the maintenance of the machinery on their behalf, or a large farming enterprise might operate their support center," said Henry.
Managing Director | COO | Executive General Manager | Growing Complex and Challenging Organisations – MBA | MAICD
4 年great read thanks Jennifer, the silver lining is that we are amidst the largest and swiftest change in social, work and production practices in our lifetime