A company looking to revolutionize advanced soil measurement this week announced the close of a seed funding round.
The investment into Vancouver’s Miraterra was led by At One Ventures, and marks a “pivotal moment in the company’s mission to transform soil insight,” according to a statement from the B.C. startup.
Investors S2G Ventures, One Small Planet, Overview Capital, iSelect Fund, Starshot Capital, Pelican Ag, and Cisco Foundation also participated in the round, the company said.
“Our view is that Miraterra’s technology is filling a critical gap in the agritech landscape,” said Sanjeev Krishnan, managing partner at S2G Ventures. “By providing consistent, repeatable, cost-effective measurements and insights into soil health, we believe they can enable the next level of precision agriculture and sustainable farming.”
Soil is a cornerstone of agriculture and vital for environmental health and food security. But our soil is no longer healthy, Miaterra warns.
“A race is on to meet the growing need for affordable, accurate soil data,” asserts Nate Kelly, chief executive officer of Miraterra.
Some companies are banking on advanced modelling to replace the need for rigorous testing, he says, but scientists “are constantly making astonishing discoveries about soil and are advocating for even more rigorous testing.”
“Our solution uses a combination of remote sensing, proximal sensing, and advanced modelling to reduce the cost of testing while increasing rigour and reducing uncertainty,” Kelly said.
Tom Chi, founder of At One Ventures, says he assessed more than 50 different companies over six years until he discovered Miraterra, which he claims can “see into soil at 1000x better accuracy than the competition.”
“This gives them an insurmountable advantage in revealing mineralogical, hydrological and biological health of soil,” the investor stated.
The seed funding enables Miraterra to develop its inaugural proximal sensing product, the Digitizer, according to Kelly, who says his company has been partnering with trusted labs to build credibility before reaching out to end-users.
“Our market research showed us that gaining the trust of agronomists’ and farmers’ partners was crucial,” Kelly noted. “Farmers and agronomists trust their soil testing lab.”
This Miraterra Digitizer combines novel hardware, signal processing, machine learning, and computational chemistry, and represents a significant leap forward in soil measurement technology, according to Kelley, who says the company has “identified partners who’ve been seeking a solution like ours and are eager to introduce our digitizer to their labs” and is moving forward from there.
At One Ventures invests in deep-tech startups and was founded by Chi, former Head of Experience and founding member at Google X. To date, At One Ventures has invested in 35 startups.
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