Arable, the leader in field intelligence for agriculture, today announced it has raised $40 million in series C financing. The company will use the new funding to advance climate resilience in agriculture by accelerating product development, delivering new services for customers and expanding its global footprint.
Galvanize Climate Solutions, which led the fundraising round. Also joining the round are Arable’s existing investors, including Prelude Ventures, S2G Ventures, Ajax Strategies, Grupo Jacto, Middleland Capital, M2O and iSelect. In connection with their investment, Saloni Multani, partner at Galvanize Climate Solutions, joined Arable’s board. The funding sees new participation from Qualcomm Ventures.
Agriculture is currently responsible for one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions and 70 percent of all freshwater use. Growing population will require producing 50 percent more food by 2050 from the same land area.
“It’s a global imperative that we find new solutions to reduce emissions, increase agricultural resilience, and create a more sustainable food supply,” said Multani, “Arable is at the cutting-edge of farm innovation with technologies that combine the next frontier of connected sensors and machine learning. We are excited to lead this investment round because the company’s technology aligns with our mission to scale vital and urgent climate solutions.”
“From talking to farmers and agricultural producers worldwide, it really feels like we are at a tipping point. There is an urgent need to improve the productivity and sustainability of farming while at the same time making these systems more resilient to a changing climate and landscape,” said Jim Ethington, CEO of Arable. “Arable is focused on building the tools for the next generation of agriculture that can unlock productivity through data and digital tools while helping secure farmers’ livelihoods and a stable food supply. We are thrilled to have the teams at Galvanize and Qualcomm Ventures join us on this journey.”
Arable’s streamlined solution allows agricultural professionals to quickly and easily access the data they rely on, including weather, soil, plant health and other critical environmental conditions.
To optimize water use, Arable uniquely combines an accurate view of the weather, soil moisture and irrigation amounts with sensors that read the growth and stress of the crop to provide a complete view in one integrated solution. This reduces irrigation by up to 50 percent through this approach while keeping yields and quality consistent.
Arable’s technology has been used by agronomists at AgroInnova, a leading agronomic advisor in Central America and shown an ability to reduce pesticide use by 15 percent. “If you can use Arable to monitor the plant data, you can make better decisions on when to apply and when not to apply,” said Adolfo Meneses, CEO of AgroInnova.
Ethington added, “In addition to being used on-farm for operational decisions, Arable also helps larger companies to see across their entire farm supply chain, enabling them to accurately benchmark sustainability, estimate carbon emissions and sequestration, and predict yield or timing.”
“The output of a model is only ever going to be as good as the data you feed in, and in a space like carbon where money and reputations will be on the line, we believe Arable can help to achieve a level of reliability and trust that can really help farmers and the planet,” said Multani.
In order to achieve the highest level of data accuracy, Arable has created a unique calibration and validation network of 30 global research institutions on more than 50 sites across 15 different climate zones who come together to produce industry-leading models that continuously improve with time through machine learning.
Arable’s customers include Bayer, Netafim, Absolute Foods, The Nature Conservancy, Treasury Wine Estates, University of Nebraska, Embrapa and The World Food Programme.
Thanks to Arable’s approach to data-driven decision-making, customers have seen four times growth in annual recurring revenue each of the last two years. To support this growth, Arable has doubled the size of its team in the last year and added offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Bangalore, India.
