February 20, 2016

Just as U.S. farm incomes are expected to decline for a third consecutive year, and commodity prices remain at multi-year lows, investments in agtech startups in 2015 rocketed to a record $4.6 billion, according to the recently released AgTech Investing Report for 2015.

The report, which was produced by AgFunder using data retrieved from CrunchBase, SEC filings, and respondents within the industry, indicates that investments within the sector nearly doubled last year, increasing 94% over the previous year’s investment total of $2.36 billion – boosted by a surge of investments across 241 deals totaling $2.4 billion in the second half of 2015.

“Ag tech startups are capitalizing on the consolidation and professionalisation [sic] of farming. Lower commodity prices will accelerate both trends,” Sid Gorham, CEO of farm management software company Granular, which raised $21 million last yeartold Reuters.

The sector has truly shown signs of maturing beyond its nascent beginnings, to involve family offices, high-profile, high-net-worth individual investors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Demi Moore, and Jared Leto, in addition to Google, and the venture units of agribusiness giants, Monsanto and Syngenta. Investors have also shown signs of increased global diversity, with American investors totaling 58% of the whole in 2015, compared to 90% the year before.

The food e-commerce segment, including online food suppliers and delivery companies, was the top investment-raising agtech segment of last year, garnering 36% of the total investments, and raising $1.65 billion.

Overall, precision ag deals increased 140% year on year in 2015. The drones and robotics segment saw 42 companies raise $389 million last year – representing a 237% increase over 2014. Drone companies led the fundraisings rounds, with many progressing to Series B and C. China’s to drone company DJI, raised a $75 million Series B, and 3D Robotics raised a $64 million Series C, while Ehang raised a $42 million Series B.

As soil and water quality concerns and the reduction in the use of agri-chemicals come to the fore for both farmers and consumers, the biologicals category was also notable, seeing 20 deals raise $120 million in 2015, while irrigation and water startups raised $673 million across 22 deals.