Israeli AI weed spraying platform technology developer Greeneye Technology today announced that it has closed a seed funding round of $7 million led by JVP. Participation in this round also included Syngenta Ventures, the largest crop chemical producer in the world, 2B Angels, One Way Venture, Panache Ventures Techstars, and Hyperplane Venture Capital. The company is announcing two new board members, JVP Partner Michal Drayman, and Managing Director of Syngenta Ventures, Shubhang Shankar.
Greeneye will use the investment to advance product research and development while expanding its strategic partnerships with sprayer manufacturers and other stakeholders. The company aims to commercialize its technology after a series of field trials with farmers and multinational cooperation contracted in 2020. The funds will also help to deepen the technology’s analytics capabilities and expand to additional spraying applications.
Greeneye Technology cofounder and CEO Nadav Bocher said, "The way farmers spray chemicals in agriculture is about to be massively disrupted to a more efficient and sustainable manner. Our mission is to reduce the usage of chemicals that are being sprayed in agriculture, utilizing artificial intelligence to provide precise and targeted spraying in real-time, save money for farmers while increasing their productivity and profitability. Our trials indicate that our technology reduces herbicide usage by 65?92%, which supports our mission to address these global agricultural challenges."
Founded in 2017 by Bocher, CTO Alon Klein Orbach and head of R&D Itzhak Khait, Tel Aviv-based Greeneye is developing a platform using artificial intelligence to accurately detect and spray weeds in real-time. To date, farmers worldwide still spray their fields uniformly using a chemical-intensive treatment, without distinguishing between the crop, the bare soil, and the weeds. This market failure results not only in a significant economic loss to the farmers, but also causes material environmental damage and accelerates the development of herbicide-resistant weeds. Greeneye’s selective spraying (SSP) system can easily integrate into any agricultural sprayer, by retrofitting existing sprayers or through working in collaboration with sprayer manufacturers to deliver plant-level variable-rate spraying. In addition to the significant savings that Greeneye's precision spraying technology offer to farmers, it also maps the entire field with cameras at a plant level resolution, offering a robust, and affordable scouting solution.
JVP founder and chairman Erel Margalit said, "Greeneye’s technology is revolutionizing the agricultural industry by reducing 90% of pollutants and hazardous use of pesticides, impacting our soil, water, air, and the very crops we eat. Governments, farmers and the general public are striving for a reality in which agriculture protects the environment."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 26, 2020
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