TOP 10 AgTech Startups in the USA

AgTech or Agricultural Technology means using technology in agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture with the goal of improving yield, productivity, profit and beneficialness. 

AgTech startups all around the globe are developing innovative solutions to tackle challenges, such as increasing production costs, labor shortages, land management inefficiencies, food waste and much more. One such place is the United States, where 40 percent of the land is utilized for agriculture of some type. In this article, we focus on the Top 10 AgTech startups of the USA, a nation that has witnessed major improvements in the AgTech sector all due to the increased use of computers, scientific soil and crop analysis, more advanced machinery, among other reasons.

1. Farmers Business Network

Founders: Amol Deshpande and Charles Baron

Founding Year: 2014

Headquarters: San Carlos, California

Funding received: US$ 571.4M

Investors: Kleiner Perkins, GV, Temasek Holdings, T. Rowe Price, DBL Partners,

Balyasny Asset Management, Bow Capital, Acre Venture Partners, Expanding Capital, Baron Capital, Lupa Systems, Blackrock Innovation Capital, Fidelity Canada, Mandi Ventures and Ronald M. Shaich

Farmers Business Network is a farmer-to-farmer agronomic information grid developed to help farmers solve their financial performances. The Agtech startup aims to improve the source of revenue of farmers by making information beneficial and accessible. It utilizes data science and machine learning to provide farmers with impartial and unique insights about each of their fields, driven by billions of data points from its network. It also provides farmers with analytics about product performance, benchmarking and predictions based on real-world performance data.

2. Plenty

Founders: Jack Oslan, Matt Barnard, Nate Mazonson and Nate Storey

Founding Year: 2014

Headquarters: South San Francisco, California

Funding received: US$ 541M

Investors: DCM Ventures, Data Collective DCVC, Innovation Endeavors, SoftBank Vision Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Group 11, Finistere Ventures, Pete Flint, Kirenaga Partners, Louis Bacon, Driscoll’s

Plenty is a vertical farming startup, meaning that it grows crops on farms that are vertical, unlike the usual horizontal ones. The AgTech startup brings fresh, clean crops to people far and wide. Plenty’s vertical farms use 99% less water than conventional farming fields, are pesticide-free, and produce zero fertilizer overflow. 

The Agtech startup’s team comprises visionaries, engineers, scientists, artists, foodies, and plant lovers working together to improve the wellbeing of plants, people, and our globe.

3. Apeel Sciences

Founders: James Rogers

Founding Year: 2012

Headquarters: Goleta, California

Funding received: US$ 361.4M

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Tech Coast Angels, Upfront Ventures, GIC, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Viking Global Investors, DBL Partners, S2G Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, PowerPlant Ventures, Engel Ventures, Rock Creek Capital, Jason Spievak, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Invoca and John Greathouse

Apeel Sciences has developed a plant-derived technology for fresh foodstuffs that improves their shelf life and quality. Its edible coating product named Apeel (made from plant materials) can make avocados, citrus and other types of fruit last twice as long as compared to the normal duration. 

The startup strives to combat the issue of food wastage at almost every step of the supply chain, from packers to retailers and finally to the consumers at home.

4. LIVEKINDLY

Founders: Roger Lienhard

Founding Year: 2019

Headquarters: Los Angeles, California

Funding received: US$ 335M

Investors: Trustbridge Partners, EQT, Blue Horizon Ventures, Blue Horizon Corporation and Griffith Foods

The LIVEKINDLY  co. is a group of plant-based start-up brands, such as, The Fry Family Food Co., LikeMeat, LIVEKINDLY Media and Oumph!, that is dedicated to transforming the global food system. It is the only AgTech startup to date that owns and operates the entire value chain of production. It has forged strategic partnerships with seed growers, producers, suppliers, and has also invested in infrastructure to convert traditional meat production facilities to plant-based products.

The LIVEKINDLY co. and its collection of brands are creating delicious plant-based food without the need for animals or the exhaustion of natural resources, along with delivering interesting and inspiring content related to a plant-based, sustainable, and compassionate lifestyle.

5. Bowery Farming

Founders: Brian Falther, David Golden and Irving Fain

Founding Year: 2015

Headquarters: New York, New York

Funding received: US$ 167.5M

Investors: SV Angel, First Round Capital, GV, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, RRE Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, BoxGroup, Flybridge, Temasek Holdings, Homebrew, Urban Us, Scott Belsky, Red Swan Ventures, Henry and 8 other investors.

Bowery Farming is a modern farming company growing the purest harvests possible. The AgTech startup’s patented software system, BoweryOS, uses vision systems, automation technology, and machine learning to monitor plants and their growth in its indoor farms. It is on a mission to grow food for a better future by reforming agriculture. By combining the benefits of the best local farms with technological advancements, its indoor farms create idyllic conditions to grow post-organic harvest. Bowery farms use zero pesticides, 95% less water, and produce 100x times more produce on the same piece of land than old-style agriculture.

Its produce is currently available at select Whole Foods and Foragers stores in the Tristate area (The Tristate Region is commonly referred to as the greater New York (City) area and is made up of three states: New York (NY), New Jersey (NJ) and Connecticut (CT)), and also features on the menus of Tom Colicchio’s New York restaurants Craft and Fowler & Wells.

6. AppHarvest

Founders: Jonathon Webb

Founding Year: 2017

Headquarters: Morehead, Kentucky

Funding received: US$ 142.3M

Investors: Revolution, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, ValueAct, Equilibrium Capital and Narya Capital

AppHarvest is an AgTech startup that focuses on the fields of agriculture, farming, and how to integrate them with technology. The startup is currently merging traditional agriculture techniques with the latest technology to grow non-GMO, chemical-free produce.

AppHarvest has recently announced a merger with NASDAQ-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital, enabling it to go public in the coming few months.

7. Gro Intelligence

Founders: Nemo Semret, Sara Menker and Sewit Ahderom

Founding Year: 2014

Headquarters: New York, New York

Funding received: US$ 27.4M

Investors: GGV Capital, Data Collective DCVC, TPG, One Planet and Payam Zamani

Gro Intelligence is a Big Data and SaaS company aiming to build a more connected, efficient, and productive global agriculture industry. The startup automatically harnesses huge amounts of publicly available structured and unstructured data worldwide (e.g. satellite imagery from NASA, customs data reported in Portuguese from Brazil, demand data reported in Mandarin in PDF format, etc.), regulates it, and utilizes machine learning to create predictive models that permit investors across the agricultural network to make productive business decisions.

8. Brightseed

Founders: Jim Flatt, Lee Chae and Sofia Elizondo

Founding Year: 2017

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

Funding received: US$ 27M

Investors: Horizons Ventures, S2G Ventures, Fifty Years, AgFunder, Continental Grain Company, Germin8 Ventures and Lewis & Clark AgriFood

Brightseed is an artificial intelligence-driven AgTech startup that identifies the presence of specific nutrients in plants that are supposed to boost human health. Forager® is our planet’s first and only AI to map millions of hidden phytonutrients that forms new biological connections between plants and human health.

Forager® uses an exceptionally faster computational approach, searching a frequently growing database for compounds and combinations that can be applied to human health, a process that usually takes 50K+ years to execute if done using traditional methods. 

The startup fosters a healthier future by revealing and activating the link between people and plants.

9. Nori

Founders: Christophe Jospe, Paul Gambill and Ross Kenyon

Founding Year: 2017

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington

Funding received: US$ 5.3M

Investors: Techstars, Techstars Sustainability, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Placeholder, Tenacious Ventures and North Island Ventures

Nori is the world’s only carbon dioxide removal market. The AgTech startup is building a transparent and safe platform that will allow anyone in the world to pay and remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Its discretionary marketplace will enable carbon removal suppliers to connect directly with buyers, improving efficiency and reducing costs.

10. Flourish Software

Founders: Bennett Adams, Colton Griffin and Juan Carlos Garcia

Founding Year: 2017

Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia

Funding received: US$ 2.1M

Investors: Krillion Ventures, 7thirty Capital, Mark Kingdon and Mike Dowdle

Flourish Software is a supply chain management seed-to-sale monitoring platform built for cannabis and hemp. The platform is used by cannabis and hemp growers, manufacturers, and retailers to track products from seed to sale, manage operations, and utilize advanced analytics. It is designed in a way to manage these day to day operations easily.

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