On May 19, 2015, Farmers Business Network (FBN) announced that it raised $15 million in funding towards the development of its precision agriculture technologies. The Series B funding round was led by Google Ventures with prior investors Kleiner Perkins and DBL, an impact invest firm, returning.
Quebec City based company, XpertSea, announced $1.3 million in seed funding from Real Ventures, a Canadian seed stage venture fund. The company provides inventory management solutions for aquaculture producers, specifically through its product, XperCount, a mechanism that can count tiny aquatic organisms in a fraction of the time it traditionally takes.
On May 11, 2015, Joule Unlimited announced a new $40 million funding round geared toward increasing commercialization of its fuel conversion technologies. The funding round consists of a mix between private equity and venture debt financing, including return investor Flagship Ventures, and will be primarily allocated toward construction of the company’s production facility in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Arvegenix announced recently that it has received $2.5 million in aggregate funding from Monsanto, Cultivation Capital, The St. Louis Arch Angels, and BioGenerator. Located in St. Louis, Arvegenix is exploring the use of Pennycress as an oil-producing crop with ancillary benefits, like livestock feed.
Stevia First announced that it has entered into a private placement securities purchase agreement with institutional investors in the aggregate amount of $1.5 million, with Stevia First’s common stock selling at $0.30 per share.
Drone technology developer DJI recently announced a $75 million investment deal with Accel, a global venture capital firm. The deal constitutes one of Accel’s largest single investments. Both companies have aligned their efforts in order to assist DJI with expanding into the UAV market.
Israeli investment firm Impact First Investments (IFI) announced today that it has invested an undisclosed amount in Catalyst AgTech, a company dedicated to developing technologies that minimize the environmental impacts associated with agrochemical products.
Portland, Oregon based drone company, Skyward, announced a $4.1 million seed round on April 28. This latest round of funding was led by Founders Co-Op, Norwest Venture Partners, Techstars Ventures and Verizon Ventures.
Berkeley-based drone company, 3D Robotics, announced an expansion of their Series C round on April 23. The company reported an additional $14 million dollars, bringing their Series C from $50 million to $64 million.
Rochester, NY based Sweetwater Energy announced the closing of $10 million in debt financing, which will help secure the company’s operations as it begins the construction of its first commercial biomass-to-biochemical conversion facility.
San Francisco based Planet Labs closed $118 million in Series C financing with $23M coming in at the end of the round from the International Finance Corporation. (We covered the first close in January.) This latest round exceeds the $93 million dollar goal set by the company which builds “off-the-shelf” electronics that are placed into satellites used to map the globe.
After its successful launch last November and a $1.2 million Seed round on March 10, PepperTap, a startup which aims to become the Fresh Direct of India, raised $10 million in Series A financing from SAIF partners and Sequoia Capital (the latter having led the seed round as well).
Algal Scientific, an algae-loving Plymouth, MI based company, closed a $7M Series B round on March 31st, receiving investments from Formation 8, Evonik Industries and Independence Equity.
Big up for city farming! UrbanFarmers, a Zurich based company providing farming solutions for urban areas, announced the successful completion of a 2.1m Series A round on March 31. The company says its as a ‘global pioneer’ in Aquaponic Rooftop farming — yes, that’s what it sounds like, fish, in a vegetable garden… on a roof!
Ecozen, which makes solar-powered cold storage and irrigation products for farmers, announced today that the company had raised a $1m Series A from Omnivore Partners. The company will use the funds to expand production capacity and expand its market research.
March 31st – DroneDeploy went skyward today with $9 million in first round Series A financing. The company, which provides cloud-based user-friendly software platforms for drone operations, accessible through smartphone or tablet apps, saw the investment from Emergence Capital Partners, SoftTech VC, Data Collective and AngelPad.
Netafim, the world’s largest provider of drip irrigation services announced a $500 million debt financing on March 6th from Israel Discount Bank, Union Bank of Israel, Migdal Insurance and Financial Holdings, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank and HSBC.
