Israel-based crop analysis technology developer Taranis has raised $30m in a round co-led by Orion Fund, the investment vehicle for diversified conglomerate Kuok Group managed by corporate venturing subsidiary K3 Ventures.
The round was co-led by the Singaporean state-owned Vertex Growth and included Hitachi Ventures and Micron Ventures, respective corporate venturing subsidiaries of electronics conglomerate Hitachi and data storage system producer Micron Technology.
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, a venture capital subsidiary of financial services provider Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, filled out the round together with VC firm Finistere Ventures.
Founded in 2015, Taranis has developed artificial intelligence technology that extracts information from high-resolution images of crops taken by drones to inform decisions about deploying fertiliser and pesticides in real time.
The company said it has signed up some 19,000 customers across the Americas, Russia, Ukraine and Australia. It currently covers corn, soybean, sugar cane and cotton, and will use the funding to expand in Asia and broaden its technology to other crops, such as rice.
Taranis closed a $20m series B round in late 2018 featuring fertiliser producer Nutrien as well as Cavallo Ventures and Sumitomo Corporation Europe, subsidiaries of agribusiness Wilbur-Ellis and diversified conglomerate Sumitomo respectively.
VC firm Viola Ventures led the series B round, while Finistere Ventures, Vertex Ventures, OurCrowd, Eyal Gura and Gal Yarden also took part.
Earlier Taranis investors include Eshbol Investments, Kaeden Capital, iAngels, Mindset Ventures and Marc Benioff as well as Finistere, Vertex, OurCrowd and Gura.
