Notion Capital has led a $1 million seed round for Cambridge, UK-based agtech startup, KissanHub, with participation from current strategic partner and customer, NIAB.

Launched out of the Cambridge University Judge Business School’s Accelerate Program in 2013, KissanHub has developed a SaaS platform that integrates with users’ existing processes. Combining precision agriculture, big data, cloud computing, machine learning, and mobile capabilities, KissanHub aims to deliver clear decision points designed to make agriculture predictable and profitable for farmers and others along the agri-supply chain.

“KisanHub’s ability to leverage the cloud to combine disparate and complex data sets, to then provide actionable intelligence to large-scale agricultural enterprises via a SaaS platform, positions it uniquely in Europe to transform the way global agricultural enterprises make decisions to increase yield and reduce costs,” says Notion Capital’s Patrick Norris in a recent statement.

Dr. Sachin Shende, KissanHub chief executive and former farmer, explains to TechCrunch that the company’s technology can be applied to a farming operation through the integration of farm location, crop, and weather data to forecast pest infestations or disease outbreaks, or the integration of crop, field, soil and weather data to pinpoint the exact rate of irrigation needed.

With operations in both the UK and Pune, India, and a current customer base of over 1,000 large agricultural enterprises, KissanHub plans to use the financing to fund its R&D initiatives, expand its sales, and enhance customer delivery.

“This investment will give us the ability to enhance and deliver our offering to a greater number of these farmers both in the UK and internationally,” says Giles Barker, KissanHub COO and co-founder.

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Lynda Kiernan