JAKARTA – U.S. agricultural intelligence company Taranis announced Tuesday the end of a $30 million C Series cycle led by Vertex Growth and Orion Fund, a subsidized venture capital fund through the Southeast Asian conglomerate Kuok Group.
The cycle was joined by new investors who added Hitachi Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Micron Ventures, UMC Capital, La Maison, Mindset Ventures, iAngels and Gal Yarden.
Existing on the tour included Vertex Ventures Israel, Viola Ventures, Finisterre and OurCrowd.
Taranis uses high-resolution drone photographs and synthetic intelligence to analyze crop-related threats, such as insect infestation, weeds, and nutrient deficiencies. With an investment of $60 million to date, the startup now plans to deploy its most widely.
“Until recently, producers had to wait for tedious manual selection to assess threats, formulate an action plan, and respond,” said Taranis CEO and co-founder Ofir Schlam. “Our intelligence service eliminates guesswork and provides real-time hyperlocal data from the fields in question.”
The company’s unique AI2 SmartScout responses can capture photos of fields covering a hundred acres in a 0.3mm solution consistent with aircraft and drone pixels in six minutes.
To date, Taranis has worked with retail, agricultural appliance and crop cover companies, John Deere, Syngenta, Nutrien, Climate Corp and BASF.
In 2018, Taranis grossed $20 million in a B-Series turn through Tel Aviv-based Viola Ventures. He pocketed $7.5 million in a Serie A led through Finistere Ventures, Vertex Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel in 2017.
“The agtech market will soon see a consolidation around the images and vision of artificial intelligence, and there are only a few tough players left,” Vertex Growth Hock Chuan Tam said in a statement. “We are firmly convinced that Taranis’ exclusive generation will lead the group.”
With the support of Singapore public investment firm Temasek Holdings, Vertex Growth provides expansion capital to companies in Vertex’s start-up fund network. It closed its first vehicle for $290 million in September 2019.
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