Pollen Systems, launched in 2017, deploys drones to collect aerial imagery and uses visual AI to assess crop health down to individual plants and trees. Its platform delivers crop-specific management plans—for wine grapes it advises irrigation needs, monitors pests and heat stress, and predicts harvest yield. The company raised $2.4M in new capital, and a company newsletter says the funding puts its valuation at $24M. Pollen recently hired nine employees, including sales directors for Spain, Peru and Singapore/Southeast Asia, to support global growth. It currently operates in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile and Spain and aims to enter ten additional countries this year, including the U.K., Germany, Japan, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Rwanda. The expansion strategy includes creating local subsidiaries abroad and moving into new sectors such as the paper industry, sugarcane and coffee. Competitors cited in the article include SemiosBio Tech, Ceres Imaging and Taranis; Keith McCall, a former Microsoft executive, is the founder and CEO. Pollen Systems builds a platform combining drones, sensors, and swaths of data to help winemakers quickly assess vineyards and analyze crop growth, over- or under-watering, and the presence of pests or diseases. The company applies machine learning to a growing agricultural database to automate vineyard analysis and create a more efficient survey process than manual field inspections. Founder Keith McCall stays on as chief technology officer and has recruited longtime colleague Phil Van Etten to serve as CEO. Pollen Systems has raised $500,000 and currently serves about a dozen customers, four in Chile and the rest in Washington. The business is targeting vineyard needs to increase yield and reduce irrigation costs and is exploring expansion into other customer segments such as berry and wheat farmers. McCall and Van Etten say the company reduces cost and leverages data and analytics to build a scalable solution for growers.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Apr 2024