Ag Tech News

Ag Tech News: Monsanto Invests in Ag Tech Startup’s.

To help Blue River Technology, Monsanto Growth Ventures was among a group of investors. An agtech startup using machine learning and computer vision to help farmers with their crops, raise $17 million.

Other investors in the deal include Pontifax Global Food and Agriculture Technology Fund, Syngenta Ventures, Data Collective Venture Capital, Khosla Ventures and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. Ryan Rakestraw, a principal with Monsanto Growth Ventures, declined to disclose how much the firm put in the deal, but Ryan Rakestraw said it was a significant amount.

The money will be used to accelerate development of Blue River agriculture robots and expand Blue River’s engineering team.

Jorge Heraud, co-founder and CEO of Sunnyvale, California-based Blue River Technology said “With our new funding, we’re looking to build our team with the industry’s most talented engineers and scientists to advance the boundaries of computer vision, machine learning and robotics in agriculture to solve one of the world’s largest problems sustainable agriculture.”

Monsanto Growth Ventures, founded in 2011, is led Managing Director John Hamer serving as investment director and Kiersten Stead and Rakestraw as principals. The venture group is looking to invest at least $150 million in startups by 2020.

Source:http://www.bizjournals.com/