Led · Equity · Nov 2024

EarthOptics leverages advances in soil-sensing technologies, genomics, and data science to deliver predictive insights into chemical, physical, and biological soil properties. It combines lab-based analysis with field-based sensors to give farmers and ranchers actionable recommendations to optimize spending and unlock sustainable farming opportunities. The company completed a strategic merger with Pattern Ag, combining EarthOptics’ proprietary field-based sensing technologies with Pattern Ag’s lab-based analysis to offer comprehensive soil data. Led by CEO Lars Dyrud, EarthOptics operates offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Emeryville, California; Arlington and Blacksburg, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Fayetteville, Arkansas, and maintains two laboratories in Emeryville and Memphis, Tennessee. The company intends to use new funding to accelerate technological innovation, broaden its geographic reach, and consolidate its position as an authoritative source for soil insights. EarthOptics develops next-generation soil-sensing technologies that combine ground-based sensors, satellites, physical soil samples, machine learning models, and agronomic expertise to deliver detailed soil measurements. The company's platform provides insights to help farmers optimize fertilizer applications, inform tillage decisions, and quantify carbon sequestration. EarthOptics plans to use its latest funding to expand access to its tools and deliver hyper-accurate soil insights. Founded in 2018 and based in Arlington, VA, the company serves growers and ranchers seeking data-driven land-management decisions. The company is led by CEO Lars Dyrud. The article reports a recent financing that will support its growth and product expansion efforts. EarthOptics has developed an imaging suite that uses ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic induction to produce deep maps of soil physical and chemical composition. Its commercial products, GroundOwl and C-Mapper (C for carbon), reconcile no-contact sensor data with traditional lab samples via machine learning trained on tens of thousands of ground-truth measurements. The hardware can be mounted on ordinary tractors or trucks and pulls readings every few feet, reducing physical sampling from hundreds of samples to dozens. The company’s outputs can be used to create meter-scale treatment maps or to feed variable-depth robotic field machinery such as smart tillers. Management positions the product as a cheaper, faster, and more precise alternative to traditional soil sampling and as foundational data for automated and robotic farming. Financially, EarthOptics raised a $10.3M A round to scale its two existing products and to develop a moisture-mapping product.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2024

Arzeda builds a protein-design platform that uses biophysics-informed AI combined with generative methods (large language and diffusion models) trained on a proprietary dataset to design enzymes and proteins. The company targets non-biomedical, industrial and consumer applications—its first product is a natural stevia-based sweetener for an unnamed consumer brand, with pipeline projects including laundry detergents for Unilever and biodegradable materials co-developed with W. L. Gore. Arzeda also handles experimental validation and manufacturing of its designs and generates revenue from both sales of proteins/enzymes and end products made with contracted partners. The firm reports a 70-person team and says it is generating revenue, with customers including Unilever, W. L. Gore, AAK and the U.S. Department of Defense. It aims to scale production of its artificial sweetener and commercialize additional enzymes while working toward corporate-EBITDA-positive performance. Arzeda is a Seattle-based protein design company that engineers proteins and enzymes to replace ingredients with a high environmental footprint. The company uses a platform that combines physics-based computational protein design, machine learning, and lab automation to design and build new molecules. It works in partnership with Fortune 500 companies and industrial leaders to develop sustainable products for food & nutrition, advanced materials, and diagnostics & pharma industries globally. Led by CEO Alexandre Zanghellini, Arzeda intends to accelerate product development and commercialization of new enzymes. The company raised new capital to fund those commercialization and product development efforts. Arzeda leverages an advanced protein design technology and a proprietary platform to design enzymes and biological pathways for commercial production. The company develops a portfolio of enzymes and specialty chemicals targeting polymers, advanced materials and health and nutrition markets. It serves global manufacturers, including DuPont, Mitsubishi Chemical and INVISTA, and works to improve crop yield and resilience. Led by co‑founder and CEO Alexandre Zanghellini, Arzeda is expanding its product development pipeline. The company will use the new funding to expand the throughput capacity of its protein design platform and advance products toward commercial production. The close of the Series A comes as Arzeda gains traction in the synthetic biology and bioeconomy markets.

Led · Series A · Oct 2023

AFFiNe is a Singapore-based SaaS platform for creatives that provides multi-model blocks integrating text, databases and a whiteboard to present ideas without switching between collaboration tools. The product is designed to streamline creative collaboration across formats and reduce tool fragmentation. The company is led by founder Jiachen He and COO Yipei Wei. AFFiNe raised $8M in a Pre-Series A round and intends to use the funds to expand operations and broaden its business reach. The firm has announced a planned Series A round to support product development and commercial operations. The October 2023 raise brought the company’s total capital raised to $40M.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2023

Bushel develops software tools that digitize, permission, and accelerate information, transactions, and payments across the agricultural supply chain. Its platform includes a flagship mobile app, websites, trading tools, digital payments, market feeds, API services, and farm management software. Key products and initiatives include Bushel Wallet for digital payments and Bushel Farm, a next-generation farm management software launched after the acquisition of FarmLogs in 2021. The Bushel Network comprises more than 100,000 farmers and 2,600 grain and ag retail locations and securely manages account-related data for more than 45% of farm-originated grain in the U.S. and Canada annually (an estimated 10 billion bushels). Enterprise customers such as Scoular, The Andersons Inc., and ADM use the platform, and the company is SOC 2 Type II compliant and processes debit transactions over PCI-certified networks. Bushel offers a software platform — including a mobile app, websites, trading tools, market feeds, API services and a custom software division — that connects growers, grain buyers, ag retailers, protein producers and food companies. The platform integrates with grain accounting systems, trading desks, farm management systems, insurance companies and market feeds to standardize and permission data across the supply chain. Monthly, 60,000 growers use Bushel’s products and nearly 2,000 grain buying locations across the U.S. and Canada rely on the platform; Bushel reports its platform reaches 40% of U.S. grain origination and $22 billion of grain is contracted annually within its ecosystem. Bushel plans to introduce payments, credit and trading offerings and increase data services to help consumer brands sustainably source commodities and accelerate current product offerings. The company emphasizes data security, ownership and transparency and positions itself as an independent integration hub to reduce manual processes and strengthen grower–agribusiness relationships. Bushel was founded in 2011, launched its platform in 2017, and is headquartered in Fargo, N.D. Bushel provides software technology solutions that integrate into grain elevator accounting systems and market feeds to deliver real-time account information directly to growers. Its elevator-branded apps power real-time scale tickets, contracts, commodity balances, futures, prepaids, cash bids, settlements, e-sign and contract management. The product suite also includes websites and market feeds and a custom software division focused on agriculture. Since launching in 2017, Bushel's software has powered 1,200+ grain facilities across the U.S. and Canada. The company intends to use new funds to accelerate offerings for the grain industry and broader agriculture supply chain, including technology and solutions to improve profitability and market access for growers and to enhance efficiency and insights for financial services and farm management companies. Planned work also includes linking in-season production data and sustainable practices with downstream traceability and enabling direct and local sourcing of grains and other crops. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Jake Joraanstad. Bushel offers a patent-pending, cloud-based platform delivered through business-branded mobile apps that gives growers real-time access to scale tickets, contract settlements, cash bids, pre-pays, e-signatures and contract management. The platform is powered by a proprietary translator developed by Myriad Mobile and includes an API and secure infrastructure to connect fragmented systems across the grain value chain. Since launching in June 2017, Bushel has expanded from ten pilot locations to more than 400 elevator and ethanol plant locations across the U.S. and Canada, and more than 20,000 growers have access to Bushel-powered apps. The company plans to use new funding to expand its reach, accelerate product roadmap and R&D, improve customer success, and evaluate strategic acquisition opportunities. Bushel is positioned as a free, grower-facing tool offered through trusted grain buyers and has been adopted by leading elevators, cooperatives and ethanol plants such as Landus Cooperative, Agtegra and Flint Hills Resources. Myriad Mobile’s custom software division will continue to provide ongoing strategy, design and development services for Bushel.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2022

Agrolend operates a lending platform that provides credit at the point of sale for agricultural inputs (seeds, crop protection, crop nutrition) using CPR-F contracts signed via farmers’ WhatsApp. The company leverages a distribution network of more than 150 partners—retailers, industries, and cooperatives—and operates in over 15 Brazilian states across crops including soybeans, corn, coffee, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables and livestock. Agrolend finances loans through issuance of time deposits targeted to agribusiness (LCAs) distributed on major investment platforms. The company has nearly $100M in total funding and reports a capital base of approximately $100M following the latest round. Management says the capital increase will let Agrolend expand credit offerings to industries, retailers and cooperatives without raising its leverage ratio, continuing a history of low‑risk growth. Its stated goal is to grow the credit portfolio to $600M and serve about 10,000 small and medium‑sized farmers. Agrolend is a São Paulo-based financial institution that provides credit to small and medium-sized farmers in Brazil through a digital platform. Led by CEO Andre Glezer, the company originates and formalizes loans in a digital environment via smartphone, partnering with input and equipment distributors, industries and agtechs to finance technology. It operates in more than ten Brazilian states across crops and sectors including soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar cane, fruits, livestock and dairy cattle. Agrolend is targeting expansion to serve up to 10,000 small-to-medium sized farmers and increase its loan book to R$2 billion for the 2023/24 crop season. The company expected its loan book to reach R$250 million by the end of 2022 and will increase equity to R$220 million after the Series B. The business combines digital origination with partnerships and capital markets solutions to scale agricultural credit across Brazil. Agrolend offers a 100% digital credit product for small and medium agricultural producers, with a fast, low-friction underwriting process that completes in under five days and typically does not require physical collateral. The company uses advanced technology to enable an innovative credit model focused on financing diverse agricultural productions and investments in equipment and new technologies. Agrolend emphasizes ESG and social impact by targeting underserved producers across more than 10 Brazilian states and roughly 100 municipalities. Founded in December 2020, the startup says it is currently doubling in size every month. The recent capital will support growth of the credit portfolio, expansion of the team, and improvements to the platform and credit model. Management aims to scale the loan book to R$1 billion and reach 5,000 customers within two years. Agrolend offers an online loan origination platform for small and medium-scale farmers, using advanced technology and innovative credit analysis to underwrite loans without physical collateral. The company partners with traditional agricultural inputs players and supply-chain participants to originate loans and reach growers. Loans range from 50,000 to 300,000 Brazilian reals, run for up to one year, and are repaid after harvest; some loans can be issued as soon as 24 hours after request. Agrolend says it offers lower interest rates than traditional banks and operates the entire process digitally. Founded in December 2020 and based in São Paulo, the startup raised seed capital to scale lending and build its team. It plans to structure a fund that will receive and hold originated loans, with Agrolend selling loans to that debt investment vehicle to enable much larger lending capacity.