Micropep Technologies, a French ag biotechnology company has raised a €4 million ($4.94 million) Series A round of funding. Micropep is developing crop enhancement products using micro-RNA or miRNA.
Inscripta is building a business based on selling gene-editing tools, such as instruments, reagents, and software, and in order to create a market for these tools, the company is giving away CRISPR enzymes for free.
After several successful trials in citrus, apple, and almond orchards in Spain and Israel, Saturas cofounder and CEO Anat Halgoa Solomon told AgFunderNews that will the company use the new funds to bring its first products to market along with continuing development of a modified version of the company’s original sensor for use on vineyards.
Plastomics is working to shorten the pipeline for developing new seeds with multiple transgenic traits, increasing the speed and lowering the cost of designing new seeds using chloroplast engineering.
Novolyze develops and manufactures microorganisms to improve food safety validation processes for food processors and manufacturers.
With the price of hyperspectral cameras falling fast, the new imagery on the block is poised to have a big impact on food and agriculture among other industries.
VanderSat, which joins a growing number of remote sensing startups targeting the agriculture sector, is taking a different approach to others, namely in its use of microwave sensors.
Startups of various kinds are branching out from the world of agrifood tech into the world of fintech, both to make their products more accessible to their target customers and to generate more value from their core offerings.
Tortuga AgTech is developing robotic systems for harvesting fresh produce in controlled environments, from indoor hydroponics to greenhouses, starting with strawberries.
Ag biotech is a central focus of agrifood tech investing; here Brett Morris from TechAccel says out the firm’s market map of the category.
There are at least 20 agtech startups that use remote sensing technology for different precision farming applications. Here are the most prominent remote sensing companies, sorted by the main source of remote sensing data each uses.
ImpactVision, a software startup using hyperspectral imaging to help food supply chain companies determine the quality and ripeness of food products, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding in a round led by Acre Venture Partners.
SafeTraces technology allows users to place an invisible, seaweed-based DNA tag on individual food items so that their provenance and qualities can be traced and verified throughout the supply chain.
According to the company, Douxmatok allows food companies to use 40% less sugar in their products while achieving the same level of sweetness, with no aftertaste.
There’s one thing that every new agtech startup needs when they want to sell their solution to farmers: proof that it works. And to get that, you need field trials.
More collaboration between biological and chemical crop protection makers can better serve growers, workers, consumers, and the environment.
Kevin Watt, land and livestock manager at TomKat Ranch, thinks that once the benefits of regenerative ranching can be fully quantified — through soil carbon measurements, forage density, and more — it could become a mainstay of both ranching and soil management.
Chemical pesticides are under increasing scrutiny from consumers and regulators; biopesticides can provide an alternative or supplement to these traditional chemical pesticides, write Spencer Maughan and Kieran Furlong.
RML Agtech is hoping to alleviate some of the pressures faced by India’s farmers with its multi-function, online agtech platform with some similarities to American startup Farmers Business Network.
Agriculture data has been a big disappointment for the majority of farmers, particularly in the US. But there is still much potential if approached the right way, according to Igor Ivanov and Ellen Czaika.
