Israeli agtech start-up SupPlant secures $10m in its mission to make AI irrigation accessible to small-scale farmers
The agtech start-up SupPlant, based in Afula, has raised a further $10m investment to expand its sensorless irrigation technology. The round was co-led by Boresight Capital, Menomadin Foundation, Smart-Agro Fund and Mivtah Shamir, and brings SupPlant’s overall funding to over $19m.
Founded in 2012, SupPlant works to provide precise irrigation plans for farmers and agro-businesses by fusing real-time data taken from the soil, plants and the weather, with advanced algorithms in the cloud. The data-driven technology provides recommendations for farmers such as how to prepare for bad weather or how improve quality testing for sugar levels in fruit, as well as offering actionable insight into the plants’ reactions to climate change. SupPlant equips farmers, particularly those that are smaller-scale, with the tools to implement a more accurate and adaptable irrigation strategy.
According to the company, its AI-powered plant-sensing technology, offers the unique opportunity to save water on global scales while improving productivity and yields. “The funds raised in this round will allow us to speed up implementation of our new development – a fully sensor-less industry defining irrigation regime. It is far superior from any common practice available and is built for the vast majority of farmers on earth — smallholders that can’t afford access to hardware intense technology and unique knowledge.”, said Ori Ben Ner, CEO of SupPlant to Agribusinessglobal.com.
“We already have strategic and disruptive agreements in place with global leaders that will allow us to reach millions of farmers in the upcoming year with this new and exciting technology.”
SupPlant says its technology grew by 1,200 percent in 2020. It projects that over two million farmers worldwide will be using its technology by 2022.
“Across a variety of critical crops and a wide range of geographies, from small hold farmers to larger scale food producers—we invest in SupPlant because SupPlant helps farmers produce more, better food, sustainably”, added Partner at Boresight Capital, Jeffrey Swartz.
