The Monsanto and Climate Corp duo is at it again. And this time, it’s in the dirt.
On Thursday, Monsanto acquired the soil-analysis business formerly operating under the San Fransisco-based ag-tech company, Solum. The details of the acquisition price have yet to be released, but we’ll be watching. The company will serve under Climate Corp, which is looking to expand it’s soil-analysis for it’s already massive data system used to help farmers make better farming decisions and better prepare for sustainability and security.
“Each season, farmers face a wide range of soil-related decisions that can help them improve the productivity of the finite land they farm,” said David Friedberg, CEO of Climate Corp. “High quality, consistent soil analysis will ensure farmers, agronomists and ag retailers can offer and access improved decision support resources to increase on-farm efficiency.”
The plans for Solum—now re-branded with its snazzy new name, Granular Inc.—include beefing up its main function as a vertical SaaS company that provides cloud data and mobile applications for large farms. Their target customers are the top 2 percent of farms, which operate over one-third of the cropland in the United States. In a statement made on Thursday, Granular has said that the funds from the acquisition, in addition to the $4.2 million round of financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, will be used to develop the business software, sales and customer support teams around the US.
“We were fortunate to develop two great business lines at Solum: an advanced soil science business based in Iowa and a cloud software and analytics business here in San Francisco,” said Sid Gorham, CEO of Granular. “The Climate Corporation is the right partner to bring our soil science innovations to their full commercial potential. For our part, we’re excited about building out Granular as a cloud software provider to help large farming businesses become more efficient, profitable and sustainable.”
With both Climate Corp and Granular Inc. reporting a win-win, we’re wondering– who will Monsanto acquire next?
