Founded in 2007 by the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, Innova is a pre-seed, seed and early-stage investor focused on starting and funding high-growth companies in the Biosciences, Technology and AgBio fields across the state of Tennessee. Innova links capital with great ideas to create groundbreaking products and services.  At Innova we invest in start-up companies, help them grow, and then assist them in linking with established corporations for licensing, buy-outs or further investments. We provide the synergy of experienced management, market expertise and venture capital to accelerate the development of new products and services into viable business units that can stand on their own and then take their place with a mature market leader, if desired.  Whether an innovation is still on the drawing board or stalled in the market place the Innova staff has the expertise, skills, and experience to envision and create a functioning business unit that is prepared to thrive in the market place. Technical know-how, market-proven staffing, and ''just-right'' funding assure the greatest chance possible for success.

Innova Memphis

AgLaunch envisions a transformed regional agriculture and food economy centered around farmers, innovation, and equity. AgLaunch attracts, creates, and grows agtech startups, facilitates the development of new agriculture and food value-chains, and builds collaborative farmer networks, with a commitment to intentional inclusion. We focus on attracting, starting, growing, and supporting new agriculture companies and initiatives to revitalize our rural and urban communities and create new pathways for diversity. Now is the time to support business development, mentor diverse young talent, and find new approaches to farming.

AgLaunch Accelerator

Illinois Ventures is a seed and early-stage technology investment firm focused on research-derived companies in information technologies, physical sciences and life sciences, with a particular emphasis on those deriving from research conducted at the University of Illinois and other regional research institutions and federal laboratories.  Current investments reflect targeted practice areas in energy, device physics, advanced materials, biotechnology, medical devices and instrumentation, homeland security, and software.  Illinois Ventures works with inventors & entrepreneurs to mold concepts, vision, intellectual property, sweat and passion into breakthrough, high-growth companies, and was recently named by Entrepreneur magazine to its list of the top 100 venture capital firms nationally for entrepreneurs.

Illinois Ventures

Bread and Butter Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Minnesota, the Bread and Butter State, investing globally while leveraging our state and region’s unparalleled access to strong corporate connections, commercial opportunities, and industry expertise for the benefit of our teams. Led by Brett Brohl and Mary Grove, we invest in founders at the seed stage across foodtech, digital health and enterprise saas.

Bread and Butter Ventures

ADB Ventures is a new venture platform that will support and invest in startups offering impact technology solutions that contribute in SDG's in Asia and the Pacific.

ADB Ventures

Trailhead Capital is a mission-driven investment firm creating outstanding financial, societal, and ecological returns by backing entrepreneurs who are building the regenerative future of food and agriculture.

Trailhead Capital

Santa Barbara Angel Alliance is an angel investor group that has invested more than $5M in over 100 startup and early-stage companies.

Santa Barbara Angel Alliance

DataPower Ventures invests in founders who are building at the cross-section of Applied AI or DeepTech. We back founders committed to building software products in the Data, ML, and AI ecosystems.

DataPower Ventures

TiE Angels was launched in July 2010. It is an angel investment group formed by Charter Members of TiE Silicon Valley. The mission of TiE Angels is to support top-tier emerging companies with early stage investment and support.  Since founding TiE Angels in Silicon Valley, the forum has been launched at TiE chapters in other cities including Boston, New York City, Seattle, Portland, and Atlanta.

TiE Angels

IBOS ventures active incubation, investing, and portfolio management in tech-enabled businesses and underrepresented founders to positively impact society.

IBOS ventures

TiE SoCal Angels is a network of successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and highly educated individuals who are now turning their passion for business into investments and mentorship for the next generation.

TiE SoCal Angels

EarthSense

The lack of skilled labor in agriculture has led to an over-reliance on capital intensive machinery, synthetic chemicals, and simplified agricultural practices. This has led to the variety of bad effects from current agriculture including on the environment, food quality, and farmer profitability. In addition, the increasing unpredictability of weather and frequent extreme weather events are damaging our ability to provide the growing global population with food security. To address these problems, EarthSense has developed an agricultural robotics and AI platform with three key applications: (1) developing the next generation of more productive and sustainable crops, (2) helping growers obtain actionable intelligence from their fields, and (3) managing problems like herbicide resistant weeds. The EarthSense platform is built to be modular and easily extensible - so that other people can easily participate in innovating in the next generation of robotics and AI technology. As a result, our agricultural AI platform will enable a climate-smart agricultural system, improve plant and soil health, drive a reduction in use of chemicals and other expensive inputs.

<div>EarthSense manufactures a field robot called “TerresSentia” that is equipped with sensors (liDar, GPS) that accurately gather field data and measure field metrics such as leaf area and stem width. Using AI, collected data is processed to help farmers and related players make crop breeding decisions. The company’s product has so far been deployed at corn, soybean, and wheat fields, vegetable farms, orchards, and vineyards. In June 2019, the company raised USD 1 million in seed funding to commercialize TerresSentia. As of July 2020, 80 robots were deployed, with 100 more set to follow suit by the end of the year.</div>

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

<div>
 
 EarthSense manufactures a field robot called “TerresSentia” that is equipped with sensors (liDar, GPS) that accurately gather field data and measure field metrics such as leaf area and stem width. Using AI, collected data is processed to help farmers and related players make crop breeding decisions. The company’s product has so far been deployed at corn, soybean, and wheat fields, vegetable farms, orchards, and vineyards. In June 2019, the company raised USD 1 million in seed funding to commercialize TerresSentia. As of July 2020, 80 robots were deployed, with 100 more set to follow suit by the end of the year.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 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. The company is also looking towards expanding into Asia. 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. Taranis further strengthened its aerial imagery offering by extending its partnership with DroneNerds (the largest distributor of enterprise drone solutions) and DJI (the Chinese multinational commercial UAV manufacturer) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10126">
 in April 2022
 </a>
 .
 
 
 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. 
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12885">
 In September 2022,
 </a>
 Taranis raised USD 40 million in Series D funding led by Inven Capital, to be used to accelerate progress for the company’s 3-year plan which it outlined in 2020. The plan looks at relocating its headquarters to Indiana, US from Israel, and expanding its operations.
 
</div>

Taranis

<div>
 
 Canada-based TELUS Agriculture offers integrated agriculture software solutions to boost profits for farmers, ranchers, agri-businesses, agri-food, consumer goods, and retail firms. Farm management software solutions provided by the company include the Farm at Hand crop management platform, TKXS for data management, the Agrian precision and informed decision-making tool, and Muddy Boots—a food traceability and supply chain management product. As of July 2021, TELUS operates across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Armenia, Germany, China, and Australia.
 
 
 In July 2021, TELUS and Rabobank, a Dutch food and agriculture bank, acquired the farm planning software solution company Conservis to deliver a more robust platform covering a broader range of crops and livestock to a larger number of clients.
 
 
 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. Since 2018, Rabo AgriFinance, a Rabobank subsidiary, has also been a development partner for Conservis to enhance the platform’s financial reporting capabilities. 
 
</div>

TELUS  Agriculture

<div>
 
 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&rsquo;s product has been used in 39 different countries.&nbsp;
 
 
 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company&rsquo;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&rsquo;s platform have reportedly shown to reduce irrigation by upto 50% and pesticide usage by 15%.&nbsp;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&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of July 2022, &nbsp;the company serves over 400 customers across 40 countries, and&nbsp; has partnered with agribusiness players like&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.bayer.com/en/">
 Bayer
 </a>
 ,&nbsp;
 <a href="http://basf.com/">
 BASF
 </a>
 , and&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.nutrien.com/">
 Nutrien
 </a>
 , as well as large consumer food companies such as&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjZmt7Vz8HsAhVB5bMKHZDRA-QYABAAGgJxbg&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESQOD2vDo-TeLvYzetoyv9iGSw4AnEyiwfscK9vNdjRJ0JPSZXAOBHMYcmrQDPGFTkEl8yzB3t5tB0WHRWzqyKtJE&sig=AOD64_30Xpx6__U8VgKUxkOFpPHuSo99bw&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwj--M3Vz8HsAhVCLKwKHa4MAgUQ0Qx6BAgUEAE">
 Mars
 </a>
 ,&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.lambweston.com/">
 Lamb Weston
 </a>
 , and&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.tweglobal.com/">
 Treasury Wine Estates
 </a>
 ,&nbsp;as well as fellow startups like&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.planet.com/">
 Planet
 </a>
 ,&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.terramera.com/">
 Terramera
 </a>
 , and&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.pivotbio.com/">
 Pivot Bio
 </a>
 primarily to expand the reach of its platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the company&rsquo;s sales grew by 4x during 2020 and 2022, while&nbsp; reporting a&nbsp; 300% sales growth in Q3 2020 alone.&nbsp; 
 
 
 
</div>

Arable

<div>
 
 The company&rsquo;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. 
 &nbsp;The company initially focused on the US and Australia, and later 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16918">
 expanded
 </a>
 its services to Portugal and Spain. 
 
 
 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&rsquo;s solutions (pest and disease detection weeks ahead of human detection) align with their products and services.&nbsp;In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15394">
 December 2022
 </a>
 , Ceres Imaging partnered with Lindsay Corporation, a provider of irrigation, infrastructure, and industrial technology solutions, to receive high-resolution images from Ceres Imaging's technology for Lindsay&rsquo;s FieldNET platform.
 
 
 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 September 2021, the company raised USD 23 million in a Series C funding round led by XTX Ventures and REMUS Capital. The funds were to be directed toward advancing the company&rsquo;s product offering, developing the company&rsquo;s AI technology that will allow improved irrigation practices for growers, and expanding the company&rsquo;s geographical presence.
 
</div>

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

Provides solutions that maximizes efficiency throughout the agriculture value chain

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

Uses robots for harvesting, weeding, and related agricultural purposes

Crop and livestock monitoring startups use AI for their analytics platform

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

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

EarthSense

Smart Farming

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