A crop monitoring company has raised around £10 million Series A funding.
PlanetWatchers claims to be able to provide detailed crop insights, at any time, regardless of weather and lighting conditions through advanced machine learning.
It supports crop insurers and the agricultural industry in verifying cover crops, tillage, planting dates, acreage, crop classification and weather damage at scale.
The company, which works with a large number of crop insurance companies, uses time series-based radar data to provide detailed analysis of claims without ever visiting the field. The use of Synthetic Aperture Radar data, a powerful remote sensing technology bouncing microwave signals off the Earth’s surface, helps PlanetWatchers to detect physical properties and the changes to them over time.
Seraphim Investment Trust PLC, billed as the world’s first listed SpaceTech investment company financing the growth of companies operating in the ‘new space’ ecosystem, and Creative Ventures, a deep tech venture firm investing in early-stage companies solving humanity’s most critical crises, co-led the funding round.
The Trendlines Agrifood Fund, BIG Capital and Ridgeline Partners also invested.
“I’m delighted that PlanetWatchers can now take the next steps on our ambitious journey to tell the story of every field,” said PlanetWatchers CEO Dominic Edmunds.
“We are thrilled to have the support of both Serpahim and Creative as co-leads and the other investors in the round. We look forward to expanding our market-leading technology and our commercial footprint together.”
Andre Ronsoehr, principal at Seraphim Space, said: “PlanetWatchers have achieved an awful lot over the past year, and I am proud of the entire team at the company.
“They have established themselves as a great partner to major companies that are vital in ensuring today’s global food supply chains, namely crop insurers and agricultural companies.
“The team’s capabilities in analysing synthetic aperture radar (“SAR”) data and giving customers actionable insights are second to none, and we are very happy to back them in fulfilling their full potential.”