Deere leads HabiTerre’s $10m Series A first close to build 'the global standard' for sustainability metrics
Summary
The system uses a combination of remote sensing, process models, and artificial intelligence to evaluate past, present and future land performance and create simulations that can predict environmental outcomes on the farm.The model can apply to croplands, grasslands, forests and wetlands.Deere being the lead investor for the Series A round is a powerful signal about the potential impact the technology could have at scale, says HabiTerre CEO Nick Reinke, who adds that his company has worked with Deere on pilots in the past.The new investment will largely go towards scaling HabiTerres technology offering to make it even more efficient for quality assurance and quality control for more companies across the ag value chain.Weve executed a number of pilots and are working with a number of different commercial customers, he notes. Theres also kind of a general lack of confidence in the outcomes generated, so that scientific rigor is a really key piece.We have the ambition to become a global standard to quantify agricultural decarbonization and sustainability metrics, adds Dr. Guan. Guan won the FoodShot Global Groundbreaker prize in 2022; more recently, the HabiTerre model was validated by carbon accounting nonprofit Climate Action Reserve.On top of that, were seeing an overwhelming demand for technologies that can be the back-end infrastructure to make [carbon] markets work at scale, says Reinke, adding that a big reason for the Series A fundraise is to keep up with market demand.More than an agtech startupWhile the main application for HabiTerres technology is farm related right now, Reinke says the company is not purely an ag tech company.Were really climate tech software, and were not trying to build a business thats based upon us being a new farmer-facing platform and that being the end-all-be-all like for us.Its really about kind of that scalable technological infrastructure for climate impact, he adds. I dont think weve even begun to really discover all the different things that we could do as that kind of back end infrastructure partner looking at water-use efficiency and clean water impact, fertilizer-use metrics and nitrous oxide.Ultimately, he says we feel pretty good about what were doing because there are just a lot of different ways that we can apply our technology. This [in agriculture] just happens to be the place where it is most impactful right now.He notes this point was helpful in the fundraising process, as the climate side of investment has seemed a little bit more resilient in the face of the current fundraise environment, where capital is less free-flowing compared to previous years.HabiTerre is currently aiming to do another $3 million to $4 million as part of its Series A round and is actively looking for investors, adds Reinke.Weve got a little bit of room left in the round and are just looking for strongly aligned investors.