Ag and food-tech acceleration fund Radicle Growth has led a recently closed US$2.85 million funding round for AI startup Motorleaf, which provides agronomic solutions for the controlled-environment agriculture sector. Desjardins Capital, Real Ventures, Fluxunit (Osram Ventures), BDC Capital and 500 Startups Canada also participated. The funding will enable the company take a broad look at greenhouse conditions and apply the technology to multiple crops.

Montreal-based Motorleaf provides technology that acts as a “digital agronomist” with hardware and software that helps to predict accurate harvest amounts. It is being applied in greenhouses in the U.S., Europe, Ontario, and Quebec, with trials with California greenhouse SunSelect leading to a 50-percent reduction in yield prediction error in tomatoes.

In a press release, Radicle Growth CEO Kirk Haney said that “Motorleaf’s ability to apply automation by adding convenient hardware to preexisting greenhouse control systems makes them not only practical, but ready for today’s greenhouse industry. The next round of solutions coming out of testing only highlight more of the potential insights this technology brings to the table.”

Growing Indoor Farming Market

According to the company, there are currently 52.3 billion square feet of greenhouses and indoor farms that can benefit from Motorleaf’s technology. But with the investment community pouring money into the vertical farming sector, that figure is sure to grow.

Notable deals have included ‘post organic’ vertical farming startup Bowery Farming which raised $20 million in a Series A co-led by General Catalyst and GGV Capital; Singapore-based Packet Greens, a high-tech automated, hydroponic vertical farming startup, which raised a US$1.5 million Seed round led by Spring SEEDS Capital; and of course San Francisco-based Plenty, which last year secured a $200 million Series B led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Other players in the space include BrightFarms, Freight Farms, and AeroFarms.

“Better yield prediction is only the beginning for Motorleaf’s value to this sector,” says Motorleaf CEO Alastair Monk. “We’re ultimately producing dynamic grower protocols, which help manage everything from light and nutrients to predicting crop diseases before they happen, and optimized growing conditions that increase ROI – all based on real-time data.”

By David Nitchman, GAI Media