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By Jonathan Shieber@jshieber / February 23, 2021
FluroSat and Dagan, two startups that both are tackling the monitoring and management of agricultural inputs and outputs for a better understanding of the role sustainable agriculture can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, have merged and are launching a package of services under a new brand, Regrow.
The merge, announced yesterday, will create a company that combines FluroSat’s data-driven agriculture management services with Dagan’s soil biogeochemical modeling technology, the companies said in a joint statement.
The combined companies will have the ability to provide satellite collected data to optimize crop management and adoption of conservation practices along with site-specific analysis and custom interventions for different crops, fields, farms and regions.
Dagan co-founder Dr. William Salas said the combined companies will be able to have a better handle on the market for carbon emissions — thanks in no small part to Dagan’s work on soil carbon.
“Soil carbon sequestration is finally emerging as a globally relevant strategy for drawing down excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. Shortcuts, misconceptions and over-hyping have the potential to stunt the tremendous potential of soil carbon,” Salas said in a statement. “But the merger of FluroSat and Dagan will give the industry the confidence and integrity it needs with best-in-class soil health data that can prescribe site-specific strategies and provide accuracy and transparency that will help companies succeed in carbon markets.”
Terms of the merger were not disclosed, but FluroSat had previously raised roughly $8.6 million in equity and grant funding led by Microsoft’s M12 venture fund, according to data from Crunchbase.
“Over the next decade, we need to grow and produce enough food to nourish 10 billion people around the world in a way that protects our land and stems climate change,” says Ranveer Chandra, chief scientist, Azure Global at Microsoft. “Regrow’s computational agriculture, using machine learning and scientific modeling, will help improve the accuracy of accounting for soil carbon, and bring farmers closer to benefitting from carbon markets.”
