Terramera Announces Seed Funding for New Subsidiary enrichAg: A Revolutionary Approach to Measuring Fertility, Carbon and Soil Health

With seed funding from At One Ventures, we’re pleased to announce the launch of our new subsidiary that will help make healthier soil, healthier plants and a healthier planet possible.

If you are concerned about the future of our planet, then it’s likely that the importance of soil is already on your radar. Healthy soil, filled with life-giving nutrients and organic matter, is fundamental to all of life on Earth. That’s why we’ve spent countless hours in the lab, in fields and at our whiteboards over the last decade mapping out our vision for healthier soil, plants and food to feed healthier humans and a healthier planet.

Today, I’m proud to share that our hard work is coming to fruition as we announce the launch of our new soil-focused company. The new company is called enrichAg, and it is launching a transformational product called enrichSoil. The enrichSoil platform is a tool that farmers and agronomists can use to more effectively measure and analyze soil, improve variable rates, lower fertilizer costs, and ultimately boost the health and productivity of their agricultural land.

As we start up this new company, I want to take a moment to share a few details about the significance of this announcement: about what it means more broadly for the future of our company, the agricultural community and the planet.?

Our values-aligned partnership with At One Ventures

EnrichAg Technologies, is a commercial subsidiary spun out of Terramera. The new company is launching thanks to US$6million in seed funding from At One Ventures – a venture firm focused on backing companies with disruptive technology that can play an active role in fostering planetary health.

With At One’s investment, we’re now commercializing more of Terramera’s IP and scaling the development and distribution of enrichSoil (enrichAg’s flagship product). This new product transforms soil analysis from sample to results. Launch of the new product in 2023 accelerates our focus on climate smart and regenerative agriculture so we can make significant inroads in the battle against soil degradation.

Sharing a similar vision and values, both companies see deep tech applications as the way of the future. At One Ventures is the ideal partner. Together we’re driving toward a future in which companies and their customers make a net positive impact on the planet.

By combining our capabilities in science, artificial intelligence, software development and robotics with At One’s unmatched knowledge base, network and expertise in scaling hardware and software-based climate solutions, we are confident that enrichAg is well poised to transform the soil testing landscape. We’re also aware that the need for this transformational soil analysis technology has never been more urgent.?

A $200-billion global opportunity to revolutionize agriculture

Healthy soil is intrinsically linked to climate regulation, biodiversity, air and water quality, as well farm resilience, productivity and profits! Yet the quality of our soil has been on a dramatic decline for decades, in part due to modern farming practices like tilling, and the use of chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. It is estimated that one-third of the planet’s topsoil has been depleted. If we don’t improve the health of our soil soon, global food production may be at risk.?

There is a growing consensus that regenerative agriculture is the most viable solution to the issue of soil degradation. It works by replenishing the soil and improving its ability to store carbon, which in turn, can help farmers to increase their productivity – and profits – by up to six times. Combined with the use of greener chemistries, which help to reduce the soaring costs of inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides, these practices help grow healthy soil. Healthier, carbon-rich soil means more resilient and valuable lands and crops for farmers, and more nutrient-rich plants and food for all of us.?

While the results may be clear for farmers who’ve made the shift, nature’s systems are complex. In the soil, materials like carbon are hard to track, leading to disagreements about just how much is in the ground, how much is being released and how much could be sequestered. Until now, there hasn’t been a set of tools good enough and cheap enough to use to measure the carbon in soil at scale in real time –? and to reliably trust. EnrichSoil will change that by making it easier than ever to measure soil fertility, minerals, carbon and overall soil health – helping farmers to track and better understand their soil over time and giving them tools to reduce costs. This will also make the ROI for transitioning to regenerative agriculture more compelling.?

Ahead of us is a $200-billion global opportunity to improve food security and nutrition, revolutionize agriculture, help turn back the clock on climate change, and preserve human life.?

A true team effort

We couldn’t have gotten this far without the commitment and dedication of our incredible team members. I’d like to acknowledge a few of them here, including our CFO Mike Scott, CTO Travis Good, VP Chemistry and Bioinformatics Sadegh Shokatian, VP Engineering Vincent Clerc and Senior Director of Software Engineering Julian Palmer.

I also want to thank Tom Chi, At One Ventures’ founder, chair of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and long-time advisor. His expertise and leadership have been pivotal to us. His confidence in investing in enrichAg gives us a clear signal that we are on the right path.?

There are many others, including our entire team at Terramera, and our investors and supporters, who have made this possible. As enrichAg gets rolling, we’ll be sharing more details and more spotlights on the team that made it possible. Stay tuned for more news to come.

We have big goals for enrichAg and enrichSoil. Big goals for agriculture and for the future of our planet. With the right people involved, I’m hopeful we stand a chance of turning back the clock on degradation of our planet by making agriculture more resilient, profitable and regenerative.

We know this is what’s needed to nurture a planet and society that continues to thrive and provide for us all. Our mission is to enrich our earth from the ground up. We’re so excited to take this next big step on that journey, and can’t wait to share more.