With top-tier tech expertise and a deep farming heritage, Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest are rising as one of many nation’s key hubs for agriculture expertise.
The area sits among the many nation’s high 5 agtech ecosystems, mentioned Erik Benson, managing director at Voyager Capital, which hosted its first-ever Agtech CEO Summit this week in Seattle.
Benson — who grew up on a 2,000-acre farm an hour north of Seattle — cited strengths in robotics, AI, and {hardware} engineering from establishments just like the College of Washington and a robust base of progressive farmers in Jap Washington and Oregon.
Benson recognized three main inflection factors for the agtech sector broadly:
- The emergence of success tales with billion-dollar outcomes.
- A brand new technology of tech-savvy farmers extra open to adopting expertise.
- A shift from utilizing chemical compounds in agriculture to leveraging physics, robotics, and AI for higher sustainability and productiveness.
After a number of years of regular development, investments in agtech startups have fallen since a peak in 2021 ($14 billion throughout 1,331 offers), with $6.1 billion deployed throughout 839 offers final yr, in line with PitchBook.
Regardless of fluctuations in international enterprise funding, Benson stays bullish concerning the sector. The CEOs attending his agency’s occasion this week have raised greater than $1 billion collectively.
He mentioned about 20% of Voyager’s most up-to-date fund went to agtech startups, together with 4 firms within the Pacific Northwest.
A kind of is Carbon Robotics, a Seattle-based startup that helps farmers remove weeds with out using herbicides. The corporate, ranked No. 10 on the GeekWire 200 record of high Pacific Northwest startups, has raised $157 million since launching in 2018 and lately rolled out a self-driving platform for tractors.
Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesell, a Seattle software program veteran and UW grad, mentioned advances in AI and inexpensive electronics are driving a “robotic revolution.”
“Agriculture and agtech are on the forefront of that as a result of it’s simply so ripe for disruption,” he mentioned.
Learn on for a snapshot of agtech firms within the Seattle space and throughout the state of Washington. Electronic mail us at tips@geekwire.com to tell us if we’re lacking any firms.
Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies
Based: 2008
CEO: Rusty Rodriguez
The pitch: Researches and develops symbiotic plant microbes as agricultural crop therapies for farmers.
Based: 2021
CEO: Kenny Lee
The pitch: Manufactures solar-powered robots that roam farms and pluck weeds from the soil, decreasing the necessity for pesticides and guide labor.
GeekWire 200 rating: No. 117
Associated protection: With fresh funding, agtech startup Aigen ramps up production of solar-powered farm robots
Based: 2018
CEO: Paul Mikesell
The pitch: Equipment that makes use of AI and pc imaginative and prescient to detect crops in fields and remove weeds with lasers.
GeekWire 200 rating: No. 10
Associated protection: Carbon Robotics unveils ‘AutoTractor,’ a self-driving platform to boost productivity on farms
Based: 2023
CEO: Eric Carnell
The pitch: Helps agriculture firms observe and execute regulatory-related work.
Based: 2020
CEO: David Wallace
The pitch: Know-how and providers for farms that use middle pivot irrigation.
Associated protection: Agtech startup launched by brothers in rural Washington raises cash to grow its irrigation tech
Based: 2020
CEO: Matt King
The pitch: Industrial pc imaginative and prescient for business agriculture, centered on agave, apples, and grapes.
Based: 2017
CEO: Hannah Freeman
The pitch: Software program to assist meals processing and agriculture firms handle HR, communication, fee, and extra.
Associated protection: Ganaz raises $7M for agriculture workforce software, will expand with new financial tools
Based: 2019
CEO: Steve Mantle
The pitch: Helps farmers use knowledge to attract insights on labor, stock, traceability, crop yield, and extra.
Associated protection: Planting the seeds of digital agriculture: Startup bets the farm on Microsoft’s new ag tech platform
Based: 2013
CEO: Scott Mathews
The pitch: Meals provide chain software program to assist suppliers, processors, distributors with traceability.
Based: 2013
CEO: Adam Greenberg
The pitch: Makes use of AI and machine imaginative and prescient to observe greenhouse effectivity.
GeekWire 200 rating: No. 38
Associated protection: AI for greenhouses: Seattle startup IUNU raises $20M for tech that monitors plants
Based: 2020
CEO: Kenneth Tran
The pitch: Sensible greenhouse management with AI.
Associated protection: How a former Microsoft researcher used AI to grow award-winning lettuce from 5,000 miles away
Based: 2020
CEO: Patrick Smith
The pitch: Offers knowledge analytics, engineering, and knowledge science to agriculture firms.
Based: 2022
CEO: Charlie Wu
The pitch: Makes use of synthetic intelligence to ship exact knowledge on farm operations.
Associated protection: Orchard Robotics, an agtech startup using AI to solve farming’s data problem, raises $22M
Based: 2018
CEO: Keith McCall
The pitch: Superior agricultural analytics to assist farmers handle crop development and vitality.
Associated protection: Pollen Systems raises $2.4M and expands global reach of its crop analysis platform
Based: 2011
CEO: Mike Werner
The pitch: Converts crop and forestry wastes particles into biochar.
Associated protection: Qualterra raises $4.5M to turn organic waste into carbon-trapping, crop-boosting biochar
Based: 2023
CEO: Adam Iseman
The pitch: Autonomous weeding robotic for intra-row weeds.
Based: 2020
CEO: Justin Clune
The pitch: Makes use of drones to assist farmers spot issues on the farm.
Based: 2019
CEO: Katherine Sizov
The pitch: Predicts produce shelf life to scale back meals waste and enhance high quality.
Associated protection: Elevator Pitch winner Strella Biotechnology has a ripe idea for solving major food waste problem
Based: 2017
CEO: Devin Lammers
The pitch: Rock-mapping and choosing expertise options to simplify the duty of eradicating giant rocks from fields.
GeekWire 200 rating: No. 188
Associated protection: Ag-tech startup TerraClear raises $15M to grow its end-to-end solution for ridding fields of rocks
