Brief: Google joins $13.7m round for Cropin’s data-driven farm management platform

• India-based ag data startup Cropin has raised $13.7 million in Series D funding.
• Google and JSR Corporation joined the round as new investors.
• Existing investors ABC Impact and Chiratae Ventures also participated.
• Funds will go towards expanding Cropin Cloud, the platform which unifies the company’s various apps and services for agriculture.

Why it matters:

Cropin offers data and software offerings to the agricultural industry, servicing agribusinesses in addition to government agencies and financial institutions. It also offers predictive intelligence to help forecast yields.

Cropin launched Cropin Cloud in 2022 in an effort to bring its many different apps and software offerings into a single place. The idea is to digitize the entire ag value chain, from farm management to remote sensing and data collection to food traceability and reducing waste.

The company’s customers include Unilever, which is using Cropin’s technology to help coconut farmers monitor and manage trees and production. It has also helped Italian food company Loacker digitize its hazelnut supply chain. 

Cropin told The Economic Times that it has serviced more than 250 customers and and digitized 16 million acres of farmland to the benefit of more than 7 million farmers. Roughly 80% of the company’s new customers are currently from international markets. The new capital will go towards expanding the business across 92 countries.

The company closed a $20 million Series C last year.

Meanwhile, Google’s participation in the Series D comes the same week its parent company, Alphabet, publicly launched agtech startup Mineral. Like Cropin, Mineral puts ag data at the heart of its platform in order to digitize agricultural operations.