Ag Tech Investments News

Dutch water technology company Sensoterra announces a successful funding round with Future Food Fund, and the Regional Development Agency (ROM) Utrecht Region, specifically supporting the expansion of their water management smart soil sensors for agriculture and horticulture, smart city management, and water governance.

Globally, 70% of available freshwater is used in agriculture and 40% of that is wasted due to over irrigation and pollution. Higher prices for water, fuel and fertilizers combined with worsening droughts and increasing demand for food, means water resources must be used more efficiently. At the same time, cities need to create and maintain more urban green, and good water governance is crucial to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Sensoterra enables its end-customers, farmers, advisors and (smart) cities, to save water, fuel and inputs, while at the same time realize higher crop yields and better-quality green.

To facilitate this, Sensoterra offers IoT based soil moisture measurements systems, based on its unique sensors. Customers are active in agriculture and horticulture, smart city management, and water governance. Today they manage over 12,000 active sensors in the ground globally, and this number is rapidly growing.

Sensoterra CCO & Co-CEO René Voogt: “When Sensoterra was established in 2015, it was developing one of the first IoT based soil moisture sensors on the market. Over the years, the sensors have been refined to ensure that they provide a rare combination of low cost, ease of installation, high accuracy, and no required maintenance.”

CTO & Co-CEO at Sensoterra, Ellery Rijkaart: “With the funding, we will be able to focus our efforts on scaling up sales efforts and product development activities to build even better solutions, saving more water and realizing higher yields.”

The company was acquired in 2021 by the current management team.

Managing Partner Jeroen Kimmels of Future Food Fund: “We have been following Sansoterra for years. With the entrance of the new managers and owners, the further development of the soil measurement systems and growing customer base, we feel now is the time to invest and accelerate growth."

Jeffrey Williams, Sr. Investment Manager at the ROM Utrecht Region: “We are happy to support Sensoterra, a company that fits well within the Earth Valley cluster of the Utrecht region, in its mission to tackle the problem of water overuse, a main contributor to water scarcity.”

Source: https://www.sensoterra.com/