Yamaha Motor Ventures Leads $7.5 million Series A Funding Round for AgTech Startup Verge Ag
Investment Into AI-Powered Farm Operations Planning Software, Launch Pad, Designed to Fill Critical Gap in Current Autonomous Farming Solutions
PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Yamaha Motor Ventures, the strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 7272), today announced it led a $7.5 million Series A funding round for Verge, developers of the world’s first AI-powered interactive software that enables farmers to plan, simulate, and validate the movement of equipment in the field and execute field operations efficiently.
“This investment in Verge Ag underlines our thesis that precision farming technologies are mission critical to a sustainable future for agriculture,” said Nolan Paul, Partner and Global Ag Tech Lead for Yamaha Motor Ventures. “The convergence of farm equipment, automation, and digital solutions are required to grow more food, more sustainably, and with considerably fewer resources.”
The $7.5 million funding round led by Yamaha Motor Ventures also included participation from the Fall Line Capital, SP Ventures & Artesian/GrainInnovate. Following the latest raise, Verge Ag is developing the digital twin of the farm that will help farmers assess the dependencies between land and equipment when planning field operations. This provides farmers a seamless planning experience with a data framework that fosters innovative data reuse, integration, and visualization to enable digital characterization of fields, terrain, water flow, and operational windows.
“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 of Verge. “This capital powers our strategic plan to increase the adoption of Launch Pad in key markets including the US, Latin America, EU, and Australia. We also plan to ramp up hiring for roles across our engineering, marketing, sales, and corporate development teams.”
About Verge Ag
Headquartered in Alberta, Canada, Verge Ag is accelerating the necessary transition to autonomous farming with Launch Pad, the world’s first AI-powered interactive software for farm operations planning. Providing growers with the ability to remotely plan and optimize the movement of farm equipment, Launch Pad fills a critical gap in the efforts to authentically automate farm operations.
With successful activations in North America, Latin America, CIS, and Australia, growers of broadacre row crops with Launch Pad optimization demonstrate increased profitability through direct expense reduction (fuel, chemical, and machinery hours), improved fleet optimization, and increased operational efficiencies.
Learn more about Verge at www.vergeag.com or contact us at info@vergeag.com
About Yamaha Motor Ventures
Yamaha Motor Ventures is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (YMC). Founded in 2015 in support of YMC’s long-term goal to contribute to society through business, Yamaha Motor Ventures manages the Yamaha Motor Exploratory Fund, a USD $100 million investment fund with a 10-year lifecycle focused on seed to Series B investments. Headquartered in the home of innovation, Silicon Valley, Calif., Yamaha Motor Ventures offers a wealth of business development resources to startup companies to drive innovation forward in the fields of mobility, sustainability, robotics, food and agriculture, health and wellness, and aviation.
For more information visit www.ymvsv.com
Contacts
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lisa Spicer for Yamaha Motor Ventures
Lisa.Spicer@specpr.com