AgTech Startups

San Francisco: In a new round of funding, bringing total financing to more than $150 million, Agriculture technology startup Indigo has raised $100 million, to ease food scarcity, a sign of growing investor interest in new ways.

Indigo said, a $54.3 billion fund owned and managed by the state of Alaska, is believed to be the largest single financing round into the private ag-tech sector, the $100 million investment led by the Alaska Permanent Fund.

The Massachusetts-based company's efforts to create resilient crops that can better withstand water shortages, it will supported by the $156 million raised by Indigo.

The company said that, by adding microbes to farm crops Indigo, which declined to give its valuation, restructures seeds and this helps crops to be more resistant to insects, drought, severe weather and nutrient-poor soil.

Microbes are living everywhere from the surface of rocks to bottom of the ocean and are a diverse group of microscopic organisms found in humans, plants and animals, and. Some cause disease, but others are essential to life.

Chief executive officer David Perry told that the microbes in plants have changed as more pesticides have been introduced to agriculture. Indigo has sequenced the genome of more than 40,000 microbes, building a massive database. The company has identified microbes that may help plants survive more stressed conditions, particularly those brought by climate change.

The company's revenue will come from future payments at harvest, based on a farmer's increased earnings as a result of the higher yield from Indigo's seed technology. On more than 50,000 acres. The company's cotton seeds were planted this spring, primarily in western Texas. It is the company's first commercial product.