International

[ad_1] US-based Agro.Club has raised $1.5 million led by Speedinvest with participation from Elevator Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Raiffeisen Bank International.  “We closed the round in January and we delayed the news because of the Covid-19 situation,”  Egor Kirin, founder and CEO, told AFN. “It was very good timing. We have enough […]

[ad_1] Gojek has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from new investors Facebook and PayPal and existing backers Google and Tencent, it announced today. Several other unnamed investors also participated. Jakarta-based ‘super app’ Gojek, which provides myriad services including food delivery, payments, and ride-hailing across Southeast Asia, said in a statement that the investment came […]

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: Michael Dean is founding partner of global agri-foodtech VC AgFunder, which recently invested in Singapore-based SinGrow, a vertical farming startup. All views expressed are his own and not of AFN’s editor or team of journalists. If you’ve ever tried buying strawberries in Singapore, the chances are you’ve ended up disappointed. It’s difficult […]

[ad_1] There’s a new fund in town with an eye towards accelerating regenerative agriculture. “While our history is in software, we see a change coming to food that mirrors the cloud computing revolution in technology,” said Ed Byrne, co-founder of Soilworks, in a statement announcing the new fund. “Regenerative practices are proven but not yet […]

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: John Corbett is founder and CEO of aWhere, a weather data analytics company. aWhere operates what it describes at “the world’s largest network of detailed daily weather delivering accurate, localized and in-time observed weather to farmers and the agri-food sector with 1.9 million virtual weather stations covering the world from 60°N–60°S.” Relevant […]

[ad_1] Biologics may seem like an emerging field in the agtech space but for at least one company it’s been a decade in the making. Just like the biblical parable of the humble mustard seed, which happens to be the origin of its active ingredient, the company is hoping to grow into a titan in […]

[ad_1] Although there is still some debate around what regenerative agriculture does or does not include, one of its frequently discussed tenants is the need to boost biodiversity. Today, much of our agricultural production depends on monocultures of a few species produced at mass scale in highly-efficient systems. This is great assuming that your only […]

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in our new What The Fork? series of digitalks for our community. Skip to the end for the recording or head over to our Vimeo page here to find this and other episodes. While it probably seems like many moons ago to most of us, in January of this […]

[ad_1] Two years on from raising its $4 million Series A round, the Israeli precision irrigation technology company Saturas has closed an initial $3 million tranche of Series B funding. Former investors in Saturas — Gefen Capital and Hubei Forbon Technology — have committed to the round, alongside the Trendlines Agrifood Fund, which is a new investor. Saturas is […]

[ad_1] Although the number of crops that rely on bee pollination is increasing, according to Palo Alto-based Beehero, changes across a number of variables mean that the same number of hives in an orchard may not be providing all the pollinator punch required.  “The equation of beehives-per-acre doesn’t hold much,” Omer Davidi, co-founder and CEO […]

[ad_1] Expanding the cold chain across the African continent is both necessary and hard. A better network of cold storage facilities is necessary to drive down food waste and enable wider access to fresher produce. And it’s difficult due to high installation costs and all sorts of risks, most notably those surrounding intermittent electricity supplies […]

[ad_1] Digital Agriculture Services (DAS) has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Firemark Ventures – the VC arm of Australian insurance giant IAG. The strategic investment will see the Melbourne-based farm analytics startup partner with IAG to speed up the process of risk assessment for rural insurance customers, and enhance the ability to carry out such […]

[ad_1] According to the headlines, a new challenge has risen for our agriculture industry, with China suspending Australian beef exports as trade barriers escalate. However, these bans need to be placed into context. We’ve faced far larger challenges than this before. Throughout economic downturns, decades of drought, devastating fires, and the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, farming has […]

[ad_1] Regulators across the world are gradually pushing back against the overuse of chemicals on crops. Just last week, for instance, the European Commission set out proposals to reduce pesticide use in the EU by 50% by the end of the decade. But as strong a push as that may seem, farmers need not panic: these proposed […]

[ad_1] NextProtein, a French-Tunisian startup working on new ways to produce insect-based animal feed and fertilizer, has raised €10.2 million ($11.2 million) in Series A funding, the company disclosed to AFN this week. According to AgFunder data, this is the largest early-stage agrifoodtech deal in Tunisia yet. Leading the round were a group of investors […]