Agtech seemed largely under-served by emerging start-ups, although farmers were more receptive to the adoption of new technologies than most thought.
Ceres Imaging has a fairly simple tone. Pay for a plane flying low to take pictures of your farm with spectral cameras and exclusive sensors. Soon after, you get information that helps farmers determine the water and nutrient content of the plants. pests and diseases.
Today, the startup has announced that it has raised $ 2.5 million in addition to a $ 5 million series A round that it has closed in may. The latest increase comes from Romulus Capital who led the last start-up financing period.
Ashwin Madgavkar, CEO of Ceres Imaging, founded the start-up four years ago at Stanford, where he saw a lot of cool applications for spectral cameras and wondered how to promote cleaner energy and greater energy efficiency. more efficient use of resources.
The team started using spectral imaging cameras on high-intensity crops like vines and orchards, but the team is now diversifying by bringing its product to California farms , Hawaii, Midwest and Australia. The team developed solutions in its product line to learn about crops and determine factors such as water stress, chlorophyll content, canopy vigor, thermal analysis and plant counts. and the best ways to optimize.
Madgavkar says that while other companies have approached imaging as a holistic solution, his team is taking a very consultative approach to each new client so that they can meet the needs of each culture , climate and farmer on an individual basis.
The main objective is to continue to aggressively educate midwestern clients who grow crops such as soybeans and corn that are not necessarily the most maintenance-intensive crops, but which depend heavily intelligent decisions of farmers … the.
The team already has a lot to do, but also wants to continue the global expansion of its product with this new capital.