Pear is an early-stage venture fund founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson. Their co-founding managers have historically seeded very early stage tech start-ups such as Doordash, Guardant Health, Gusto, Viz.ai, Dropbox, Lending Club, Vanta, Zoosk, Addepar, Path and many others. Their motto is simple: they invest in exceptional founders who are building amazing companies. They utilize every resource they have to assist their founders and entrepreneurs shape the future.

Pear VC

Restive Ventures is on a mission to help entrepreneurs build the world’s best fintech companies. We provide the foundation of early-stage capital, deep operational expertise, and systematic connections to help founders launch and grow more quickly. Restive reflects fintech founder’s inability to sit still – the entrepreneurs and visionaries that want to get something done, and often don’t rest until they do. Restive is committed to financially and operationally supporting founders that are driven, innovative, and ready to change the world.

Restive

Susa Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing primarily in seed rounds. The firm was founded in October 2013 and si headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.

Susa Ventures

Ulu Ventures is a leading seed-stage venture fund in Silicon Valley investing in diverse entrepreneurial teams as well as Enterprise IT, EdTech, FinTech, Healthcare, and Sustainability startups.  Ulu is the first Latina-led venture fund in Silicon Valley and is one of the largest in the country with over $200M in assets under management. As well, the firm has designed its investment process to reduce risk and produce better, more consistent returns. Ulu’s process structures intuition and applies it intelligently to investments, avoiding cognitive biases common in VC; systematically identifies key drivers of risk and uncertainty, streamlining due diligence; and calculates a probability-weighted multiple(PWM) on invested capital, ensuring consistent decision-making.

Ulu Ventures

Based in San Francisco, Cendana Capital invests in very early stage venture capital funds globally.

Cendana Capital

University of Chicago is a private research university that focuses on sciences, medicine, economics, law, business, and others. In addition to providing a dynamic education based on critical thinking and interdisciplinary exposure, the university sponsors hundreds of art and cultural events open to the public free of charge. Venues such as the Court Theatre, the Oriental Institute, and the Smart Museum often host these events for local residents and students. The university’s retail development initiatives also help strengthen the economic health of the city. Academics include more than 50 areas of specialized undergraduate and graduate study, including some interdisciplinary programs like Big Problems, which tackles matters of global and universal concern that do not belong to one discipline or interest group, scientific fields like Biological Chemistry, and more. Experiential programs known as “Chicago Careers In” provide students with research, internships, and advising in fields like business and health professions.

University of Chicago

Incite.org is an organization started by Matt Rogers and Swati Mylavarapu to support new, world-improving ideas, leaders, and teams. Incite is comprised of three branches, each of which has its own area of focus: Incite Ventures, LLC supports mission-driven enterprise through investments in businesses with the potential to scale, inspire others, and make a difference. Incite Labs is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that makes grants and program-related investments to further charitable, educational, and scientific purposes. Incite Politics is the name of the work of Incite’s founders, Swati Mylavarapu and Matt Rogers, to personally organize and support initiatives to pass legislation and elect candidates who approach our country’s issues from a fresh perspective.

Incite.org

Better Tomorrow Ventures is a fintech-focused early-stage venture firm. The venture firm was founded in 2020 and based in San Francisco, California.

Better Tomorrow Ventures

FarmRaise

FarmRaise is a digital platform that offers financial resources for farmers and ranchers to make on-farm improvements. It helps farmers unlock capital to amplify farm profitability and sustainability. It's free to register a FarmRaise account, match with grants, and apply for 3 federal programs currently on the platform.  The company was founded in 2020 and is based in San Francisco, California.

FarmRaise is a financial technology company that aims to simplify access to funding and resources for farmers in the US. Founded in 2020, the company's core offering is a platform that streamlines the process of applying for agricultural grants and loans. FarmRaise's technology collects granular farm data and uses it to quickly populate applications for various grant programs on behalf of its customers. The platform has significantly reduced the time required for grant applications, bringing it down to approximately 17 minutes from what could previously take hours or days.

FarmRaise aims to become a financial services giant, starting with farm grants

How FarmRaise Is Helping Farmers Break Financial Barriers — AGRITECTURE

USDA Announces New Financial Access Tools and Resources

FarmRaise’s Platform Hopes to Solve Modern-Day Financial Struggles for Farmers

Investing in Farmers

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

FarmRaise Introduces Groundbreaking Addition to Software Suite, Revolutionizing Farmer Financial Incentive Programs

FarmRaise is a financial technology company that aims to simplify access to funding and resources for farmers in the US. Founded in 2020, the company's core offering is a platform that streamlines the process of applying for agricultural grants and loans. FarmRaise's technology collects granular farm data and uses it to quickly populate applications for various grant programs on behalf of its customers. The platform has significantly reduced the time required for grant applications, bringing it down to approximately 17 minutes from what could previously take hours or days.
As of January 2022, FarmRaise had nearly 10,000 farms on its platform. The company operates on a subscription model, charging a monthly fee along with 10% of the value of grants secured for its clients. Beyond grants, FarmRaise has expanded its services to include assistance with farm loans, equipment purchasing at bulk prices, and tax planning. The company partners with third parties to provide many of these services, collecting finder's fees in the process.
FarmRaise has also formed strategic partnerships with major agricultural companies like Cargill and Corteva, which use the platform to help their farmer networks access grants tied to low-carbon farming practices. In April 2024, FarmRaise collaborated with the USDA's Farm Service Agency to develop a Livestock Indemnity Program Decision Tool and farm loan informational video resources, further expanding its reach and impact in the agricultural sector.
Key customers and partnerships
FarmRaise's customer base primarily consists of small and mid-sized farms across the US. The company has established notable partnerships with agricultural giants Cargill and Corteva, who direct farmers in their supply chains to FarmRaise for assistance with grants related to sustainable farming practices.
In April 2024, FarmRaise partnered with the USDA's Farm Service Agency to develop new financial access tools and resources for farmers. This collaboration resulted in the creation of a Livestock Indemnity Program Decision Tool and farm loan informational videos, aimed at increasing awareness and participation in USDA farm and farm loan programs.

FarmRaise is a financial technology company that aims to simplify access to funding and resources for farmers in the US. Founded in 2020, the company's core offering is a platform that streamlines the process of applying for agricultural grants and loans. FarmRaise's technology collects granular farm data and uses it to quickly populate applications for various grant programs on behalf of its customers. The platform has significantly reduced the time required for grant applications, bringing it down to approximately 17 minutes from what could previously take hours or days.As of January 2022, FarmRaise had nearly 10,000 farms on its platform. The company operates on a subscription model, charging a monthly fee along with 10% of the value of grants secured for its clients. Beyond grants, FarmRaise has expanded its services to include assistance with farm loans, equipment purchasing at bulk prices, and tax planning. The company partners with third parties to provide many of these services, collecting finder's fees in the process.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsFarmRaise's customer base primarily consists of small and mid-sized farms across the US. The company has established notable partnerships with agricultural giants Cargill and Corteva, who direct farmers in their supply chains to FarmRaise for assistance with grants related to sustainable farming practices.In April 2024, FarmRaise partnered with the USDA's Farm Service Agency to develop new financial access tools and resources for farmers. This collaboration resulted in the creation of a Livestock Indemnity Program Decision Tool and farm loan informational videos, aimed at increasing awareness and participation in USDA farm and farm loan programs.&nbsp;

Israeli startup Taranis, focuses on providing a complete digital agronomy solution to farmers using aerial imagery technology across the US, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, and Australia. The company now monitors more than 20 million acres globally, 50% of which is located within the US.&nbsp;The startup captures aerial images using UAVs, which can be analyzed and compared using its own platform, and allows farmers to make precise decisions about planting. The company also operates an area called the “AgroBrain”, which allows precise identification of crop issues. The company claims to account for 70% of the global crop market and equips farmers with the tools to address issues in real time. Similar to peers like Ceres Imaging, Taranis has partnered with incumbent players like John Deere, Syngenta, BASF, and Climate Field View to expand its product reach. As such, Taranis is regarded as a promising startup in global precision agriculture.&nbsp;In 2018, the company expanded its footprint in the US when it acquired Mavrx, a US startup providing aerial imagery solutions to local farmers. Mavrx ran into financial difficulties and consolidation of the two companies yielded attractive opportunities. The consolidation allowed Taranis to integrate Mavrx’s product (full field imagery product with highest resolution on the market) into its platform, thereby fulfilling Taranis’ aim of providing a complete solution. The acquisition strengthened Taranis' offering rather than differentiating it. Taranis believes that further consolidation is likely with imagery and AI solutions.&nbsp;In July 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the company raised USD 30 million in Series C funding. Key Investors included Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Micron Ventures, and Vertex Ventures Israel. The company expects to use the funds to create more relevant scouting products for growers through its platform and to also look towards expanding into Asia.&nbsp;Previously in January 2023, Taranis introduced <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/taranis-introduces-acreforward-setting-a-new-standard-for-crop-intelligence-301734306.html">AcreForward</a> which provides unprecedented leaf-level insights into growers' crops at higher frequency throughout the season and captures opportunities in every acre to help ag retailers drive more value from every acre. In <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/taranis-launches-ag-assistant-to-transform-farm-decision-making-302198624.html">July 2024</a>, The company has introduced Ag assistant, powered by a generative AI model that integrates data sources from various modalities – including images, text and audio – and with a profound understanding of agronomy.

Taranis

Based in Canada, TELUS Agriculture offers integrated agriculture software solutions to increase profits of farmers and ranchers, agri-businesses, and agri-food, consumer goods and retail companies. Some of the farm management software solutions provided by the company are: Farm at Hand (crop management platform), TKXS (data management), Agrian (precision and informed decision making)&nbsp; and Muddy Boots (food traceability and supply chain management). As of July 2021, TELUS provides its solutions across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Armenia, Germany, China, and Australia.In July 2021, TELUS along with Rabobank, a Dutch food and agriculture bank, acquired Conservis to deliver a more robust Conservis platform to cater a diverse range of crops and livestock leveraging the former’s know-how and relationships across the food industry value chain and the latter’s portfolio of innovative digital farming technologies and solutions.&nbsp;Founded in 2009, Conservis via its web and mobile platform, provides farmers with planning tools, real-time data capture, and analytics to support better decision making and efficient reporting. Having launched as a permanent crop management platform for tree nuts, the platform has expanded its capabilities to fit crop types such as citrus and grapes.&nbsp; Since 2018, Rabo AgriFinance, a Rabobank subsidiary, has also been a development partner for Conservis to enhance the platform’s financial reporting capabilities.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27853">March 2024</a>, The company&nbsp; has completed the acquisition of Proagrica, a provider of agronomic and business data solutions.Key customers and partnershipsIn <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/decisive-farming-telus-agriculture-grainfox-140000751.html">October 2023</a>, The company has partnered with GrainFox announced a new partnership to bring more digital grain trade and sell options to Canadian farmers, providing technology-based solutions to support the ongoing transformation of Canada’s agriculture industry.

TELUS  Agriculture

Arable was established with the aim of providing measurements, insight, and predictions that enable growers to address risks with crop management. The key market of focus has been the US, though the company’s product has been used in 39 different countries.The company provides real-time data updates on irrigation and weather, such as reports on plants and crop management, to allow users to make informed decisions, while also being able to precisely measure different farming-related data such as temperature and humidity. Thus, the company falls under the categories of precision and smart farming.The company’s product, Arable Mark, is an irrigation management tool whichsynthesizes climate, plant, and soil data to produce visualizations. Through a web dashboard and smartphone app, Arable Mark exposes precipitation, crop water deficit, soil moisture, chilling hours, and other metrics gathered from sensors. Customers using Arable’s platform have reportedly shown to reduce irrigation by upto 50% and pesticide usage by 15%. In May 2023, the company commercially introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18120">Arable Mark 3 </a>which includes a 5 MP camera, an optional wind anemometer, and advanced plant and environmental sensing capabilities.The company’s customer base is quite broad in the agriculture value chain, and includes farmers, advisors, insurers, processors, lenders, and governments that find Arable useful to gauge facts on the ground in real time, and in turn reduce risk and increase certainty with decision making.Key customers and partnershipsAs of July 2022, the company serves over 400 customers across 40 countries, and has partnered with agribusiness players like <a href="https://www.bayer.com/en/">Bayer </a>, <a href="http://basf.com/">BASF </a>, and <a href="https://www.nutrien.com/">Nutrien </a>, as well as large consumer food companies such as <a href="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&amp;ai=DChcSEwjZmt7Vz8HsAhVB5bMKHZDRA-QYABAAGgJxbg&amp;ohost=www.google.com&amp;cid=CAESQOD2vDo-TeLvYzetoyv9iGSw4AnEyiwfscK9vNdjRJ0JPSZXAOBHMYcmrQDPGFTkEl8yzB3t5tB0WHRWzqyKtJE&amp;sig=AOD64_30Xpx6__U8VgKUxkOFpPHuSo99bw&amp;q&amp;adurl&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj--M3Vz8HsAhVCLKwKHa4MAgUQ0Qx6BAgUEAE">Mars </a>, <a href="https://www.lambweston.com/">Lamb Weston </a>, and <a href="https://www.tweglobal.com/">Treasury Wine Estates </a>, as well as fellow startups like <a href="https://www.planet.com/">Planet </a>, <a href="https://www.terramera.com/">Terramera </a>, and <a href="https://www.pivotbio.com/">Pivot Bio </a>primarily to expand the reach of its platform.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32961">August 2024</a>, Arable collaborated with Google to leverage agritech to promote water conservation and crop productivity among Nebraska farms.Funding and financials<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11852">In July 2022 </a>, Arable raised USD 40 million in Series C funding led by Galvanize Climate Solutions to support product development, delivery of new services, and international expansion.Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the company’s sales grew by 4x during 2020 and 2022, while reporting a 300% sales growth in Q3 2020 alone.

Arable

The company’s aerial spectral imagery helps growers optimize water and fertilizer application, focusing on the midstream of the agriculture value chain. The company uses low-flying planes to capture and process these aerial spectral images. The images provide accurate and real-time information on the water and nutrient status of every plant in the field. The company has been focusing on the US and Australia.&nbsp;Its technology can be applied to vineyards, orchards, and row crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat. The company is more of a Data-as-a-Service organisation where the grower will pay Ceres Imaging by the acre and receive imagery and necessary support to integrate the information with broader crop management practices. The company has partnered with established companies like John Deere and Climate FieldView, which find that Ceres Imaging’s solutions (pest and disease detection weeks ahead of human detection) align with their products and services.&nbsp;In <a href="https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2023/03/203925-ai-enhanced-data-analytics-product-suite-ceres-imaging-now-available-to-agriculture-insurers-lenders/">March 2023</a>, The company has unveiled Risk Solutions product suite, designed to power the next generation of risk models for insurers and lenders.In 2019, Ceres Imaging significantly expanded its operations with irrigated row crops throughout the central and western US.&nbsp;During the period, Ceres also nearly doubled its share of the&nbsp;California&nbsp;specialty crop market, going from managing 10% to 18% of all specialty crop acres in the state.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16918">March 2023</a>, The company also expanded its services to Portugal and Spain.

Ceres Imaging

<div>
 
 SWIIM (Sustainable Water and Innovative Irrigation Management) System, with the support of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and various US grant universities, operates multi-patented technology developed to manage agricultural water budgets, allowing farmers to efficiently allocate water. The company focuses on the midstream of the agricultural value chain, supporting farmers through their harvesting process. The company’s technology is being widely deployed across western US states.
 
 
 The company provides a device that integrates with existing water measurement tools such as water gauges and analyzes real-time water usage via telemetry, offering farmers information on exactly how much water is used for crops and how much goes back into the ground.
 
 
 The company’s system can be used for any crop and irrigation system, lending its product flexibility and scope for potential expansion beyond the US. 
 
 
 In 2018, SWIIM acquired farm management software OnFarm Systems, which operates a customizable dashboard presenting data collected from a range of different internet of things (IoT) sources (weather, pest control, crop models) on any online device. The acquisition provided SWIIM customers with a differentiated product. Moreover, OnFarm’s 500 clients across the United States, Europe, and Asia at the time were accessible to SWIIM.  
 
 
 In 2020, SWIIM issued its own certification to farmers for the sustainable use of water, conveying to consumers that produce was grown with sustainable water management practices. In addition, SWIIM also introduced its “Certified Water Balance Report”, providing growers with an audited account of their water use. The company’s niche focus on water management, alongside its efforts at differentiation via acquisitions, arms it with potential to broaden its reach.
 
 
 
</div>

SWIIM Systems

Start-ups providing smart machinery such as agricultural robots and autonomous tractors, as well as other smart hardware devices for crop and livestock management.

Operators of marketplaces connecting farmers, suppliers, buyers, experts and advisors to streamline the farming process.

Start-ups offering software and related hardware solutions for crop operation, crop modelling, weather forecasting, soil analysis, and overall irrigation management using sensors, big data, AI and machine learning.

Startups offering software and related hardware solutions that facilitate real time data tracking and sharing on animal weight, future weight forecasts, and animal health and behavioural analysis using RFID tags, sensors, big data, AI and machine learning.

Start-ups offering drone or satellite imagery to measure and monitor fields, spray pesticides, accurately present biological parameters, control the quality of sowing, etc.

Crop and livestock monitoring startups use AI for their analytics platform

Uses robots for harvesting, weeding, and related agricultural purposes

Uses data analytics and sensors and related technologies to provide crop and livestock monitoring insights

Provides solutions that maximizes efficiency throughout the agriculture value chain

IoT-enabled sensors are used in machinery and equipment to help with data collection

FarmRaise

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