As more industries are accelerating their adoption of digitization and automation solutions, agtech startup Croptimistic aims to help farmers automate field work through maps.
Croptimistic’s soil mapping technology, named SWAT MAPS, provides farmers with high resolution soil foundation maps to enable fertilizer, seed, soil amendment, herbicide, and precision water management.
The $9.1 million is being used to bolster Croptimistic’s software and expand its team in its new office based in Kelowna.
Earlier this month, Croptimistic announced its acquisition of its founders’ consulting company, CropPro Consulting, and revealed $9.1 million in Series B funding from Forage Capital Partners.
Longtime farmer and agronomist Cory Willness first founded CropPro in 2003 with partner Shannon Willness. Together, the pair founded Croptimistic in 2018 with CTO Derek Massey.
As part of this acquisition, CropPro will be operating under Croptimistic’s existing farmer services division and territories. Croptimistic claims the investment and newly combined entity will expand Croptimistic’s market reach in agriculture.
CropPro provides consulting services for agronomy, the science of soil management and crop production. It claims to manage over one million acres of crop consulting and SWAT MAPS precision agronomy services.
The $9.1 million is being used to expand on Croptimistic’s software and increase its team size in its new office based in Kelowna, British Columbia. Additionally, the company said that the investment will be used to fund its continued research and development efforts.
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“By investing resources in our software we’ll be able to continue to scale and grow our company to meet the needs of our farmers and service providers,” Massey said. Naicam, Saskatchewan-based Croptimistic claims over 67 company partners in four countries, with its strongest presence in the United States and Canada.
In previous funding, Croptimistic raised a $5.2 million Series A round in 2021, comprising $3.5 million in equity from Forage and $1.7 million in funding from founders and institutional debt.
Last year, Croptimistic received $1.1 million in federally-backed Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network funding for a $5 million project meant to bring academic and on-farm researchers, industry players, and smart farm staff together to develop new soil and crop technologies.
Featured image courtesy Croptimistic.
