Greeneye Technology, the agriculture innovator tacking one of the world most critical challenges raises $22M for its ground-breaking solutions
Each year, farmers worldwide apply millions of gallons of herbicides to their land, most of which are sprayed onto bare soil or crop. Overuse of chemicals is not only financially wasteful, it damages the environment and allows weeds to develop resistance to herbicides. To address these very prominent, and pressing problems, Greeneye Technology has developed an AI-enabled precision spraying technology that allows for the precise application of herbicides and other chemicals. They use deep machine learning to enable intelligent, real-time decisions in the field that are so accurate that it is proven to reduce herbicide volumes by up to 90% while improving weed control efficacy compared to standard broadcast spraying.
Greeneye has just completed a $22 million funding round led by JVP that included investments from Syngenta Group Ventures and AGCO; both are leading figures in the agriculture industry. Their involvement echos the industry’s confidence in Geeneye’s breakthrough precision spraying technology.
“Precision spraying is a key tool for farmers as they look to solve the challenges of the evolving agricultural ecosystem, which include herbicide resistance, financial pressures and sustainability,” Shubhang Shankar, Managing Director, Syngenta Group Ventures.
Greeneye will use the investment to advance the technology’s analytical capabilities and extend its usage to new inputs and crops, which will increase the financial and environmental benefits of precision spraying to farmers beyond herbicides. It will also support Greeneye’s commercial launch in the U.S. in 2022 and its expansion across North America in 2023. With such a vast expansion on the horizon, Greeneye plans to double its R&D team in Israel and its sales and operations team in the U.S. Since the EU recently announced a new target to reduce pesticide use in half by 2023, this investment round couldn’t have come at a better time.
As Nadav Bocher, CEO of Greeneye Technology, put it, “This funding round marks a major milestone in our mission to dramatically reduce chemical usage in agriculture and increase profitability and productivity for farmers, while also providing consumers with safer and healthier food. Precision spraying has a crucial role to play in our essential transition to a sustainable food production system, and this investment signals the industry’s absolute confidence that Greeneye is the company to lead the charge.” The new investment will allow greeneye to continue fulfilling its mission of developing alternative and sustainable solutions to current crop protection practices to meet the growing global demand for food production while increasing farmers’ productivity and profitability. As Erel Margalit, Founder & Chairman, JVP, stated, “Greeneye’s smart spraying solution will have a dramatic impact on human health, the environment, and on farmers’ profitability, especially as farm input costs continue to skyrocket.”