Regrow, a US-based startup using technology to enable regenerative agriculture practices, has raised $38 million in funding.
- The Series B round was led by Galvanize Climate Solutions, the VC firm launched by former US presidential candidate and Giving Pledge signatory Tom Steyer and Hall Capital Partners founder Kathryn Hall.
- New investors coming on board included Time Ventures — VC fund set up by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff — and women entrepreneur-focused Rethink Impact.
- Existing investors including Ajax Strategies, Cargill, Main Sequence, the Grantham Foundation’s Neglected Climate Opportunities, and Microsoft‘s M12, among others, also joined the round.
Why it matters:
This latest capital injection follows Regrow’s Series A round in August 2021, which saw it land $17 million in funding.
Over the next year, Regrow will use the Series B funds to expand its presence in “key food-producing regions across the globe” while growing the number of farmers in its ecosystem, founder and CEO Anastasia Volkova tells AFN.
It will also work with its partners to establish incentive programs which encourage greater adoption of regenerative ag practices, while opening up “to even more producers and agricultural systems across rangelands, dairy, perennial crops, and more,” she says.
How it works:
Regrow offers three tech solutions that between them, are “aligned to every stage of the corporate sustainability journey,” Volkova says:
- Impact Measurement Tool (IMT) allows agrifood players to quantify their GHG emissions and model the impact that adoption of regenerative ag practices in their supply chains would have on their emissions. “It allows customers to look at their global sourcing portfolio and prioritize where to invest in order to most effectively leverage regen ag to reduce GHG emissions,” Volkova says.
- Sustainability Insights (SI) is a map-based tool that enables customers to view trends in regenerative ag adoption and its outcomes in its supplier network. “Here the customer is able to see what’s called ‘direct’ emissions, emissions coming from field-level production, and drill in from country-crop level […] down to the supply shed level, anchored to the location of their facilities and suppliers,” she says.
- Measurement, Reporting & Verification (MRV) enables users to design and implement regenerative ag programs with farmers, and keep track of emissions reductions and soil health.
By the numbers:
- Regrow’s MRV solution is used on over 2 million acres
- SI solution “touches scope 3 supply sheds covering over 500 million acres.” ‘Supply sheds’ refers to where Regrow’s customers source from.
Select partners:
- Anheuser-Busch
- Bayer
- Cargill
- Frenchman Valley Co-op
- General Mills
- Kellogg’s
- Netafim
- Nutrien
- PepsiCo
- Remington Seeds
- The Nature Conservancy
