The past seven days saw major funding hauls for German food delivery startup Gorillas, US cultivated meat maker New Age Meats, and Canadian precision ag platform Semios. Elsewhere, AFN examined data that suggests that agriculture is far from pulling its weight when it comes to carbon credit generation; while an industry group made the case that fertilizer reduction plans could be catastrophic for Canada’s farming sector.
Supply chain, logistics & retail
🇩🇪 Gorillas raises $950 million Series C funding at $3 billion valuation. Delivery Hero led the Berlin-based startup’s Series C alongside existing investors including Tencent. Gorillas delivers a range of food and other products to consumers’ homes in less than 10 minutes. (The Information)
🇬🇧 London-based Jiffy raised a $28 million Series A funding for grocery delivery. The funding comes only six months after its £2.6 million ($3.56 million) seed raise, bringing its total funding to $35 million. Promising delivery in less than 15 minutes, Jiffy operates a network of dark stores to handle fulfillment. (TechCrunch)
🇮🇳 SuperZop gets $4 million funding from Belgium-based Incofin’s India Progress Fund. The Ahmedabad-based ag e-commerce platform enables B2B customers such as small retailers and restaurants to buy produce directly from farmers and food processors. (VCCircle)
🇮🇩 Dropezy raises $2.5 million to deliver orders in 20 minutes. The Indonesian e-grocery startup is building a network of dark stores across Jakarta to fulfill orders. Forge Ventures led the pre-Series A round. (Tech in Asia)
🇺🇸 Grocery retailer Hy-Vee is now using Simbe Robotics’ autonomous inventory management and retail intelligence solution. Called Tally, the bot is now in operation at five stores in Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri. Simbe also recently announced that its Tally bots have amassed 75,000 miles worth of shelf-scanning. (Retail Tech Innovation Hub)
Digital ag
🇨🇦 Semios raises $100 million to scale precision ag platform with more acquisitions likely. The Vancouver-based precision ag startup has been on an M&A spree this year, acquiring Altrac, Centricity, and Agworld to create what it says is one of the world’s biggest agtech platforms with more than 120 million acres under management globally. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Intelinair raises $20 million to scale digital agronomy product, expand into carbon. It offers an agronomic insights platform using a variety of datasets while focusing on airplane-derived imagery. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Ceres Imaging has raised a $23 million Series C funding round led by XTX Ventures and Romulus Capital. California-based Ceres, which offers farmers precision agriculture through arial imaging tools and data analytics, will use the new funds to further develop its products that improve tasks like irrigation management and resource use. (Silicon Valley Business Journal)
Regenerative ag, soil & carbon
🌐 Agriculture produces just 1% of carbon credits, data suggests. Agriculture-related emissions offsetting projects account for just over 1% of all carbon credits issued, with only transportation-related projects issuing less, according to data from the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. (AFN)
🇨🇦 Report warns of C$48 billion ($37.8 billion) potential loss in farm income from fertilizer restrictions. The Canadian government is envisioning a 30% absolute emissions reduction target for on-farm fertilizer use by 2030. Industry group Fertilizer Canada, which commissioned the report, argues for “a science-based approach to nutrient management” to replace the government proposals, which it claims will cause “economic devastation to our agricultural sector.” (Fertilizer Canada)
Farm robotics
🇮🇱 Blue White Robotics raises $37 million Series B funding. Insight Partners co-led the round with Entrée Capital, with Clal Insurance, Jesselson Family Office, Peregrine VC, and Regah Ventures also participating. The Tel Aviv startup said it’ll use the funds to grow its international footprint with a focus on the US. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Advanced Farm Technologies closes $25 million Series B round for its robotic harvesting system. The startup’s TX Robotic Strawberry Harvester can sense and pick ripe strawberries from in-soil beds in the field. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Burro banks $11 million Series A funding in Toyota, S2G-led round. F-Prime Capital and the Cibus Enterprise Fund were among the other new investors to participate in the round, joining existing investors such as Radicle Growth and ff Venture Capital. Burro claims its robots offer “the only plug-and-play autonomous people-scale” solution for specialty crop operations. (AFN)
🇮🇱 MetoMotion closes $5 million for robotic automation for greenhouses. Ridder, a greenhouse technology company, led the round with Navus Ventures, the family investment office of Dutch dairy tech company Lely. MetoMotion was established in 2016 as a portfolio company of The Trendlines Group. (HortiDaily)
🇺🇸 DroneSeed has raised a Series A fundraising round of $36 million led by Social Capital and Seven Seven Six. The Seattle, Washington-based reforestation company used part of the funds to acquire Silvaseed and expand DroneSeed’s seed collection and seedling cultivation services. (TechCrunch)
Livestock tech
🇺🇸 Vytelle raises $13.2 million Series A funding to help farmers pick the cream of the cattle crop. Based in Kansas City, Vytelle offers livestock producers what it says is a faster, more precise way to identify the “elite” members of a herd, using technologies including data capture, artificial intelligence, and in vitro fertilization. (AFN)
Indoor farming
🇺🇸 iUNU acquires CEA analysis platform Artemis for an undisclosed sum. iUNU builds computer vision systems for greenhouses and recently acquired pest management consultancy CropWalk. (AFN)
Alt-protein
🇺🇸 New Age Meats scores $25 million Series A funding to build out cultivated meat production. The Berkeley, California-based startup secured the funds from South Korea’s Hanwha Solutions, SOSV’s IndieBio, TechU Ventures, ff VC, and Siddhi Capital. It’s first product in development is cell-cultured pork sausage. (TechCrunch)
🇸🇪 Hooked Foods raises €3.8 million ($4.44 million) for its vegan tuna, Toonish. Founded in 2019, it claims that it’s the first 100% plant-based tuna sold in Sweden. The startup is now eyeing international expansion and planning to launch plant-based salmon next. (Vegconomist)
🇺🇸🇭🇰🇸🇬 Impossible Foods is launching meatless pork in the US, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Consumers will be able to try the ground pork in restaurants with a retail expansion to follow. This is Impossible’s third commercial launch following its plant-based ground beef and chicken nuggets. (CNBC)
