For farmers, using Verdant Robotics\u2019 Model 3 Smart Sprayer to tackle weeds is hardly a chore.<\/p>\n
The AI-powered machine clips onto any tractor, says Verdant<\/a> founder and CEO Gabe Sibley, noting that it comes in 20- and 40-foot versions to match the standard vehicle sizes in his company\u2019s native California. \u201cIt\u2019s like the intelligent agronomist sharpshooter that rides along on the back.\u201d<\/p>\n The aimable sprayer, which is equipped with a camera and combines crop application with data analytics, targets weeds 20 times more accurately than its nearest competitor. \u201cIt goes from something that could be a few inches down to a millimeter, in terms of precision and accuracy,\u201d says Sibley, who launched Silicon Valley startup Verdant in 2018 after working on autonomous vehicles. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got dense crops like garlic, carrots, onions, you can get in between and deliver organic herbicides without touching any of the crops.\u201d<\/p>\n Because the Smart Sprayer uses up to 96% less herbicide than its traditional counterpart, switching to organic becomes economical. \u201cThat obviously opens up a much higher-margin product for the grower, at a cost that\u2019s approaching conventional costs,\u201d says Sibley, whose company aims to help build a sustainable and profitable agriculture system. \u201cThat\u2019s good for their pocketbook, and also good for us consumers and good for the land.\u201d<\/p>\n Verdant belongs to a crop of agricultural technology companies that use AI in their products and services. Elsewhere, AI might provoke fear and worry, but it\u2019s a force for good in agtech, where applications include robotics, plant breeding, and weather forecasting. By helping farmers grow better food more efficiently, the technology plays an increasingly vital role in feeding the world\u2019s growing population and shrinking agriculture\u2019s vast environmental footprint<\/a>.<\/p>\n Investors in Verdant include AgFunder<\/a>, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm specializing in agtech and foodtech. Rob Leclerc and Michael Dean founded AgFunder in 2013 after launching a short-lived food and agriculture business in West Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cOur thesis was that technology around one of the largest, most important industries, particularly the kind of technologies coming out of Silicon Valley, was going to be quite transformative and important,\u201d recalls Leclerc, whose five degrees include a Ph.D. in computational biology from Yale and a master\u2019s in AI.<\/p>\n Finding that potential limited partners were more interested in Uber<\/a> or the next Airbnb<\/a>, Leclerc and Dean generated interest by launching AgFunder News<\/a>, which they modeled as the TechCrunch of food and agriculture. Besides building widespread brand recognition, that platform helped connect them to investors, Leclerc says.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother key difference from traditional firms is we build our own technology and try to use those as superpowers,\u201d he adds. To that end, AgFunder hired an AI expert who developed a system that now sources about three-quarters of its early-stage investment opportunities.<\/p>\n Since launching its first venture funds in 2017, AgFunder has grown to about $200 million in assets under management, making it probably the second most active VC player in its space, Leclerc says. The firm, which invests in startups worldwide, has an early-stage accelerator in Singapore in addition to its core portfolio of about 70 companies. About 30% to 40% of those businesses leverage AI in some form, Leclerc reckons: \u201cWe\u2019re certainly the most active ag robotics investor anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked what drew him to agriculture, Leclerc observes that it\u2019s one of the least digitized industries but also one of the biggest. \u201cHow do you bring technology to really move this forward in a meaningful way, and bring the Silicon Valley venture capital model to try to make progress in an extremely rapid and meaningful way?\u201d<\/p>\n The technology is bleeding-edge, Leclerc says, spanning synthetic biology and satellites as well as robotics. \u201cIt\u2019s way ahead, in many ways, of consumer products.\u201d<\/p>\n He also argues that unlike, say, Facebook<\/a> or Snapchat<\/a>, food and agriculture are indispensable. \u201cThe impact that has on the environment, health, economies, individuals\u2014it\u2019s really hard to see [another] industry where you could have as much personal impact.\u201d<\/p>\n For a startup like Verdant, strong ties to the agriculture industry and top-level technical expertise are competitive advantages.<\/p>\n Sibley founded the company with COO Curtis Garner, who formerly headed operations for the world\u2019s largest tomato grower: \u201cWe could never have done it without his experience as a farmer and his relationships, his ability to connect us through to growers.\u201d<\/p>\n Verdant, which has a core engineering team of about 40, has been \u201cstupendously fortunate to attract great people,\u201d Sibley says. They include alumni of Google\u2019s now-defunct X team and autonomous driving outfit Waymo, as well as the former software lead for the Curiosity Mars rover<\/a>. Sibley, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, previously launched Zippy, a specialist in sidewalk delivery robotics that he sold to General Motors in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that were tired of not shipping in Silicon Valley\u2014you know, self-driving cars\u2014and people wanting to\u2026have an impact sooner,\u201d he says. \u201c[Agtech] has a massive impact on not just the farmer\u2019s pocketbook but on growers\u2019 land, the sustainability of their land, the health of our watershed and the planet more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n Late last year, Verdant closed $46.5 million in Series A funding<\/a> from AgFunder and other investors. But the agrifoodtech industry faces growing pains. Globally, funding totaled $29.6 billion in 2022, according to AgFunder\u2019s latest investment report<\/a>. That\u2019s seven times more than a decade earlier. However, it\u2019s also 44% below the record $51.7 billion total for 2021.<\/p>\n War, inflation, and supply-chain disruptions helped bring tech valuations back down to earth in 2022, the report notes. As part of a massive pullback, the generalist venture capital investors who dominate agtech funding are retreating to their core competencies, Leclerc says. Also, \u201cVCs have traditionally avoided investing in the world of atoms in favor of software\u201d because the margins are higher, he adds. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly going to be winners still in the space. But I think it\u2019s going to be far, far, far more difficult than we predicted it would be going back a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the country in St. Louis, Jason Bull is chief technology officer at Benson Hill<\/a>. The agtech firm, founded in 2012, deploys AI to breed high-protein, high-yield soybeans and yellow peas.<\/p>\n Benson Hill focuses on using genetics to drive innovation because it\u2019s a proven lever in agriculture and hasn\u2019t really been applied with the end consumer in mind, Bull explains.<\/p>\n \u201cThat then gives us a knock-on effect in terms of producing more protein per acre,\u201d says the Australian expat, who has a Ph.D. in quantitative genetics and statistics and previously spent 20 years at biotech giant Monsanto, where his team introduced machine learning. More protein means fewer processing steps too. \u201cIt also means less additives in the final product. So we get a lot of knock-on effects which are very environmentally advantageous, which is important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the roughly 200 people who work in research and development at Benson Hill, everyone interacts with machine learning in some way, Bull says.<\/p>\n So how does the breeding process work? Machine learning lends itself well to plant breeding because it lets you design and optimize for a desired outcome, Bull notes. Starting with the product it wants to create for consumers, Benson Hill inputs genomic, human-trial, and other data into its cloud-based machine learning interface, called CropOs.<\/p>\n Unlike GMO breeding, which requires introducing foreign genes, Benson Hill\u2019s process relies on the plant\u2019s own genome. As it narrows down the breeding selection from several thousand choices to a handful of high-value options, the algorithm also factors in operational details like budget and lab capacity, Bull says. \u201cIt takes all that into consideration, which then gives us a prescription for how we do our breeding, a very optimized script.\u201d<\/p>\n Adoption of Benson Hill products by farmers has been strong, Bull says, with the company\u2019s soybeans used on more than 300,000 acres so far. \u201cWe\u2019ve been selling into aquaculture and into the food industry for two or three years now,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the sort of signals we want to see in terms of receptivity and uplift.\u201d<\/p>\n Back at Verdant Robotics, CEO Sibley points out that his company\u2019s Smart Sprayer is a game-changing tool for agronomists as well as growers. Using its camera, the device can digitize a field in a minute level of detail. \u201cYou build the digital twin of the farm, down to every single plant,\u201d Sibley says. \u201cAnd you\u2019re tracking it over time.\u201d<\/p>\n This spatial and temporal model, which reveals the state of each plant, lets an agronomist search for better growing policies, he explains: \u201cYou can sweep chemistries and concentrations, temperatures, pressures, environmental conditions, and systematically go after what works.\u201d<\/p>\n That opens the door to outcome-based pricing. \u201cInstead of just selling lots and lots of chemistry and having a business model that\u2019s based on volume, you can have a business model that\u2019s based on outcomes for the grower,\u201d Sibley says. \u201cSo your interests are aligned with the grower. And that\u2019s a pretty transformational thing that you really only get if you\u2019re digitizing the crop and then acting on that digital model at that type of specificity.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s so much interest in the Smart Sprayer that Verdant must scale up to meet demand. Agriculture is a $55 billion spend in California alone, says Sibley, noting that the industry has a great need for efficiencies. \u201cWe take something that may cost the grower $3,000 an acre, and we help them do it for closer to $30 an acre. And that type of step change in value, it\u2019s unimpeachable. Water flows downhill.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead, what potential does AI hold to keep transforming agtech?<\/p>\n