November 21, 2016

Monsanto subsidiary Climate Corporation announced it has agreed to acquire farm management software company, VitalFields, for an undisclosed amount.

TechCrunch reports that Monsanto Growth Ventures, the venture unit of Monsanto Co. (which is an existing investor in VitalFields), facilitated the deal between the two parties.

Founded in Tallinn, Estonia in 2011, VitalFields was born from the Startup Wise Guys accelerator program. The company provides a user-friendly cloud-based platform and mobile apps that analyze and manage field activity, including tracking and reporting all crop inputs that can help European farmers ensure compliance with EU environmental and production standards.

“At Climate, our vision is to deliver one centralized digital agriculture platform to provide farmers with the tools they need to optimize their operations,” said Mike Stern, chief executive officer for The Climate Corporation in a company statement. “VitalFields has built a successful business spanning multiple European countries, and we see how their digital tools will complement our Climate FieldView™ platform offerings in the future.”

In May of last year, VitalFields raised $1.2 million in a Series A round of fundraising from various investors including SmartCap, the investment arm of the Estonian Development Fund, and an unnamed Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist.

“The efficiency of farmers depends on very different factors from weather to financials to planning and operational management.” Martin Rand, CEO and co-founder of VitalFields told Tech Crunch at the time. “We believe we have found the ingredients to success since VitalFields is one of few farm management solutions which has scaled cross border.”

This deal for VitalFields is the first foray into Europe for The Climate Corporation, which has developed the industry-leading Climate FieldView platform. Launched in 2015, FieldView is the most broadly connected data-driven suite of tools designed to improve yields and efficiency for farmers while mitigating risk. Currently used by more than 100,000 U.S. farmers, and on more than 95 million acres across the U.S., Brazil and Canada, the addition of VitalFields will complement Climate Corporation’s platform as the Vitalfields’ team continues to operation across the European market.

Commenting on the deal, Martin Rand noted, “We look forward to the opportunity to expand the availability of the tools we’ve developed to help more farmers across Europe broaden their experience of the value digital tools can provide toward greater efficiency and sustainability.”

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Lynda Kiernan