AgroScout raises $7.5 million to expand AI-based agronomy analytics service

AgroScout announced that it has completed a Series A investment round of $7.5 million to expedite the development of its AI cloud platform for remote agronomy. The platform allows all growers to comply with the rising demand for sustainable crop protection and carbon accountability. The investment round was led by Kibbutz Yotvata. Other investors include Agriline (a trust of which Vincent Tchenguiz is a discretionary beneficiary), Kibbutz Yiron, The Trendlines Group, several private investors, and a grant from the Israel Innovation Authority.

The AgroScout platform collects data to create analytics for actionable insights in crop management. AgroScout monitors the crop from emergence stand count, through canopy coverage estimates, and plant biomass, throughout the season. The platform also continuously monitors for pests and disease, decreasing pesticide use by early detection when infestation levels are low and curative treatments are highly effective, predicting regional outbreak tendencies.

“Our decision to rely fully on stable off-the-shelf hardware has paid off and allowed us to focus our efforts on our remote agronomy analytics, positioning AgroScout as a true anywhere, anytime provider," said AgroScout CEO Simcha Shore. "We are now proud to bring on new partners to expand our platform to almost any field crop and to offer sustainable and efficient remote agronomy services to most of the 500 million unserved growers.”

AgroScout’s mission is to best leverage AI cloud computing and the availability of low-cost digital imaging to bring efficient, sustainable, and accountable farming to 95% of the 500 million unserved farms of the world. The AgroScout platform offers five layers of interlaced data analysis to counter yield loss. It does so by leveraging user-generated data, collected with off-the-shelf drones and mobile phones. AgroScout eliminates the need for costly drones, field operators and long training. Farmers purchase their own low cost drones and receive minimal training to get started.

"Agroscout not only serves millions of growers worldwide, it also serves the planet," said Vincent Tchenguiz of Agriline and Chairman of Consensus Business Group. "Its top of the line AI-based platform makes any farmer's life mission of crop protection easier and more efficient, all while complying with de-carbonizing the global economy."