OneSoil raises $5 million for its farm monitoring tech – TechCrunch

OneSoil, a company selling technology to help farmers monitor fields and increase yields, has raised $5 million from international investors Almaz Capital and PortfoLion.

The company’s tech integrates satellite imagery with mobile and desktop applications for farming analytics. These offerings include both remote crop monitoring and variable-rate seed and fertilizer applications that can reduce the time spent on field scouting and improve efficiency as it relates to inputs.

OneSoil already has more than 200,000 farmers and consultants using its service across more than 180 countries just two and a half years after its launch.

The company claims that roughly 5% of the world’s total arable land (197 million acres) is covered by OneSoil users, which include major ag companies like BASF and Krone.

The financing from Almaz and PortfoLion will be used to expand on its market position in the Americas and Europe, the company said.

“We aim to help farmers make informed decisions for their agricultural operations, reduce input waste, and increase their profits. To do that, we provide digital tools that combine real-time, global-scale satellite imagery processing for the best analytics and insights for our users,” says Slava Mazai, CEO at OneSoil, in a statement. “We aim to build the biggest digital platform for informed solutions and precision agriculture. To move faster down this path, we will hire tech and marketing professionals in Europe and the CIS, and we’re looking for consultants and business partners in the field of agronomy in North and South America”

For Almaz investor Pavel Bogdanov, it was the company’s impressive adoption rates among farmers that convinced the firm to invest in the OneSoil round. “[Farmers’] adoption of new tools has been slow due to the complexity of the products, cost, and a degree of risk aversion among farmers. At least, we thought adoption was slow before we met OneSoil. OneSoil is very popular with farmers; the growth in global usage was so impressive that we decided to invest in OneSoil to help them add even more valuable solutions for farmers,” said Bogdanov in a statement.