May 2, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

The strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor Co., Yamaha Motor Ventures, has led a $7.5 million Series A for Verge Ag.

Additional participants in the round included Fall Line Capital, SP Ventures & Artesian/GrainInnovate.

Headquartered in Alberta, Canada, Verge Ag is a precision ag startup that is accelerating what it refers to as the “necessary transition” to autonomous farming through Launch Pad – the first AI-powered, interactive software for farm operations and planning in the world.

By enabling farmers to plan, simulate, and validate the movement of equipment in the field and execute farming operations in an efficient manner, Launch Pad fills a critical gap in automation, giving farmers the ability to efficiently and remotely execute field operations resulting in increased profitability through direct expense reductions on fuel, chemicals, and machinery hours, improved feed optimization, and related increased efficiencies.

“The convergence of farm equipment, automation, and digital solutions are required to grow more food, more sustainably, and with considerably fewer resources,” said Nolan Paul, partner and global ag tech lead, Yamaha Motor Ventures. “This investment in Verge Ag underlines our thesis that precision farming technologies are mission critical to a sustainable future for agriculture.”

This critical nature of precision farming technologies is reflected in the growth the precision farming market is expected to experience. From a value of $8.5 billion in 2022, the industry is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 7.9 percent to reach a value of $15.6 billion by 2030, according to Markets and Markets.  

In connection with this, the autonomous farming equipment market is expected to grow from a value of $55 billion in 2020 to $95 billion by 2027, according to a report by Global Market Insights, driven by its effectiveness in addressing labor shortages while enhancing productivity and closing efficiency gaps. 

With successful activations in North America, Latin America, CIS, and Australia, growers of broadacre row crops using Launch Pad have demonstrated increased profitability by being able to pre-plan field operations, evaluate the impact of soil compaction, reduce idle time to save fuel, optimize inputs, and improve operations through historical data analysis.

“We are developing a solution that helps farmers manage their land and equipment to efficiently and remotely execute field operations, enabling farming to be truly autonomous,” said Ryan Johnson, CEO, Verge Ag.

Following the latest fundraise, the company stated that it is developing the digital twin of the farm that will help farmers assess the existing dependencies between land and equipment, giving growers a planning experience including a data framework that fosters innovative data reuse, integration, and visualization to generate digital characterizations of fields, terrain, water flow, and operational windows. 

“This capital powers our strategic plan to increase the adoption of Launch Pad in key markets including the U.S., Latin America, the EU, and Australia. We also plan to ramp up hiring for roles across our engineering, marketing, sales, and corporate development teams.”

~Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

*The content put forth by Global AgInvesting News and its parent company HighQuest Partners is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. All information or other material herein is not to be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Global AgInvesting and HighQuest Partners are not a fiduciary in any manner, and the reader assumes the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other content on this site.