Arable, San Francisco-based IoT-enabled SaaS agritech start-up, has raised $40 million in series C financing. The company will use the new funding to advance climate resilience in agriculture by accelerating product development, delivering new services for customers and expanding its global footprint.
Arable received its first investment from Tom Steyer and Katie Hall's new climate investment platform, Galvanize Climate Solutions, which led the fundraising round. Saloni Multani, a partner at Galvanize Climate Solutions, joined Arable's board in connection with their investment. The funding sees new participation from Qualcomm Ventures. Also entering the round are Arable's existing investors, including Prelude Ventures, S2G Ventures, Ajax Strategies, Grupo Jacto, Middleland Capital, M2O and iSelect.
Last December, it opened an engineering and commercial centre in Bangalore, aiming to grow and expand its reach within the region. It is the company's second international hub after opening a regional office in 2020 in Brazil.
Arable appointed Jagan Bhalaki as VP and Head of the Bangalore office to build the company's local commercial and engineering teams. Co-founder of Synergy Infotech, which Sonim Technologies acquired, his goal is to support the company's product and technology innovation and help customers better understand how to harness ground-truth data from the field to drive more profitable outcomes.
Today, Arable serves customers in over 40 countries, working with companies including Bayer, Netafim, Absolute Foods, The Nature Conservancy, Treasury Wine Estates, University of Nebraska, Embrapa and The World Food Programme. "Arable's comprehensive data capture and analytics platform is helping businesses embrace climate-smart agriculture," said Carlos Kokron, Vice President, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and MD, Qualcomm Ventures Americas. "We look forward to supporting and working with Arable as they continue to unlock productivity and sustainability in agriculture."
The agritech's users can monitor and respond to field conditions in real-time on a mobile app. It claimed that its active users on the mobile app increased by 200 per cent in the last 12 months.
"There is an urgent need to improve the productivity and sustainability of farming while at the same time making these systems more resilient to a changing climate and landscape," said Jim Ethington, CEO of Arable. "Arable is building the tools for the next generation of agriculture that can unlock productivity through data and digital tools while helping secure farmers' livelihoods and a stable food supply."
