Israel-based agriculture technology provider Prospera Technologies agreed to be acquired by US-based agricultural equipment producer Valmont Industries for nearly $300m, allowing three previous corporate backers to exit – industrial conglomerate Tekfen, mobile chipmaker Qualcomm and networking equipment producer Cisco. The latter three had committed capital through their respective venturing subsidiaries – Tekfen Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Cisco Investments. The deal is expected to close by the end of June. It followed a two-year strategic partnership between Pospera and Valmont through which they monitored 5 million acres of agricultural land in 2020.
Founded in 2014, Prospera has developed a software platform which uses data analytics, computer vision and artificial intelligence technology to digitise the farming process, helping farmers to grow healthier crops with higher yields. It analyses and monitors the growth and health of crops, recording climate and visual data from fields to provide actionable information to farmers.
Prospera is part of the broader agtech space, which has attracted the interest of corporate investors over the years, as the GCV Analytics bar chart below clearly illustrates. In 2020, the number of corporate-backed deals in this space reached a maximum of 64 and so did the total estimated capital in those rounds at $1.8bn, hardly suggesting excessive valuations. The ongoing exuberance in public and M&A markets is naturally facilitating exits from this space which we report.
