AgTech Funding and Investments

Highlights:
AcreShield brings an innovative AI solution to solve the Yield Gap problem and, by doing so, brings farmers smarter seed selection with protection
InnoVenture Iowa invests, cites market opportunity, company leadership
Vertical Ventures Inc., lead investor, finds AcreShield brings farmers real results
AcreShield expands distributor - partner program
AcreShield board of directors authorizes* Series A increase

DES MOINES, Iowa (AgPR) October 2024 — AcreShield, the developer of the AI seed selector, the Yield Optimizer™, entered harvest season with positive financial results in fields and ongoing growth. In under a year, the company has signed on more than 70 distributors and hundreds of farmer customers.

Jason Schmidt farms near Springfield, Ill, and found Yield Optimizer gave him additional protection on his first go-round with it. He shared his impressions in a recent conversation with AcreShield CEO Billy Rose.

“I thought it was reasonably priced,” Schmidt said. “I like the ROI. There’s a really good return. It’s going to be a nice tool as it grows, especially with the additional subsidy. They’ll cover your stop losses and losses that historically you’d have a hard time recovering.

“I like it because it’s a unique product that fills a ‘yield gap’ I’ve seen in crop insurance for a long time. There’s a lot of risk in the upper portion of yield. AcreShield has identified that problem solving the challenge with the Yield Optimizer product that can help make a difference in a lot of operations,” Schmidt said. “If you can cover that risk for a limited cost, it's a valuable tool. It might keep you in business. It might also make you profitable. It’ll definitely keep the wheels on the bus.”

Company growing
As harvest progresses and farmers like Schmidt experience yield advantages, AcreShield continues to grow rapidly. The company completed its Series A funding of more than $2.5 million, and the board of directors authorized an additional $2 million in Series A. Yield Optimizer is the first commercially accepted proven artificial intelligence (AI) seed selection program for yield prediction that uses independent seed performance data and provides farmers with guaranteed ROI performance.

Leadership team track record
“We were attracted to this investment opportunity because of the proven track record and demonstrated experience of the founding team,” said Kaylee Williams, investment director of InnoVenture Iowa, a co-investment fund that supports world-changing technologies created in Iowa. “We also saw the potential for this AI technology to disrupt a billion-dollar market in a key industry – agriculture. Every row crop farmer faces the Yield Gap problem. AcreShield brings a truly innovative solution to solve the Yield Gap and, by doing so, is creating a 180-million-acre opportunity in the U.S. alone. This is something the industry has never seen before.”

Williams is not alone in her assessment and investment
Scott Stewart is president of Vertical Ventures Inc., which invests in companies leveraging technologies such as generative AI and machine learning. He said, “AcreShield fits the firm’s investment thesis as its proprietary seed trial data and model give farmers the ability for a smarter seed selection.” It also caught his team’s attention, as seed selection is paramount to a successful farming operation.

Stewart added, “We chose to become the lead investor in AcreShield Series A funding for three main reasons. First, AcreShield’s AI Ag Tech platform is up and running with a distributor network in place and with paying customers. It has demonstrated revenue success and is on track for rapid growth. Second, because of its smarter seed selection model and the proprietary data set used, they can offer farmers a performance guarantee. We haven’t seen anything like this before in the AI market. Lastly, investors always have a foundational requirement in any investment – the team. The AcreShield team has proven to be consistently successful. The entire package complements our AI investment portfolio.”

Helping farmers solve the Yield Gap
Billy Rose, AcreShield CEO, concurred, “The Yield Gap is a serious challenge to farmers, which is why we created and built AcreShield to solve this multi-billion dollar opportunity with AI-powered smarter seed selection for greater yields. We do this by managing our own independent seed trials, which provide unbiased data sets that feed our AI Yield Optimizer. The net result is that farmers have better yield and financial performance, which is so needed with today's low commodity prices. We’re solving a critical farmer problem, the Yield Gap, by demystifying smarter seed selection with financial protection.”

Higher farm performance in the field
AcreShield distributors recognize the opportunity AcreShield offers their customers. The Oswald Crow agency is an AcreShield distributor with 10 crop insurance specialists meeting farmers’ needs in southern Iowa and northern Missouri.

“I immediately realized AcreShield is a product we should provide our customers,” Adam Oswald said. “Its Yield Optimizer seed selector solves the universal row crop farmer problem called the Yield Gap. It starts at 85 percent and goes to 100 percent of the historical average yield for customers’ farms. This is a gap crop insurance does not cover.

“We know 40 percent of the time our customers’ yields fall into the Yield Gap. It’s the difference between profit and loss for the season. AcreShield’s Yield Optimizer, with its AI smarter seed selector with guaranteed protection, is what our customers need. It pays up to $100 per acre if their yields fall into the Yield Gap.” He emphasized that AcreShield is backed by the world’s largest reinsurers with AM Best ratings of A+ Superior.

Sales contacts and distributor/partner program
Farmers can buy AcreShield’s Yield Optimizer from local distributor representatives, visit acreshield.com, or call 888-650-CROP (2767) for more information. AcreShield is actively expanding our distributor partner program. Please contact Kyle Kiner, vice president of channel sales, at kyle.kiner@acreshield.com. (LinkedIn)

About AcreShield
AcreShield, a DBA of OptimalAg Solutions Inc., is a farmer-focused company founded to help farmers mitigate their financial risk by increasing yields using Yield Optimizer. The company provides revolutionary AI seed selection with seed performance guarantees and drives customer satisfaction with increased yield confidence. In short, we help farmers achieve profitability.