Big green (John Deere) has led an investment round in InnerPlant, a technology company developing a way for plants to change color and show what it stressing their growth.
InnerPlant is currently developing transgenic soybeans that display a color change within several days of being infected by a disease.
The company has raised its Series A funding round with $16 million, which Shely Aronov, CEO and co-founder of InnerPlant, says will be directed to making their technologies commercially ready.
“For 2023, we are working to finalize the technical validation on soybean fungal sensors,” Aronov says. “We have 75 farmers in our InnerCircle, and we want to launch with some of those test farmers in 2024.”
For the past three and a half years, soybeans have been the focus for InnerPlant because of the opportunities in both the U.S. and Brazil. Also, Aronov notes there’s more diversity in the germplasm compared with corn, as soybeans have five providers in the industry. While first developing fungal sensors, Aronov says the scientists at InnerPlant are also working on being able to detect optical signals through the leaves for insect pressures, and later nitrogen deficiency in corn.
“When plants start reacting to stress they react internally to protect themselves and with our technology they produce a protein in the leaves and create a light source. This means the plant can communicate to the farmer what stresses are where in the field. It can help provide plant-by-plant management,” she says.
This digitized scouting is rooted in plants emitting the data to be collected. The company started in 2019 with the idea of applying molecular biology and biosensors as a data platform technology. The company has progressed with two signals–red and green light.
She adds it’s a very versatile signal that be captured from the level of a satellite to equipment in the field using spectrometry or a camera.
“The whole ethos of InnerPlant is that we create technology that doesn’t add work. It should be affordable and scalable,” she says. “This is the final frontier for plant-by-plant management with ground proofing technology. We want to create a technology that promotes efficiencies in farming. We want an ecosystem to deliver a more efficient system, more resilient plants, and uses better management practices.”
So why is a machinery company investing in a transgenic technology for plants? John Deere has also said its intent to provide tools for plant-by-plant management.
“We are aligned in a similar vision to enable plants to communicate, tells us what they need, transform with sensing and then acting, and be efficient in field operations,” Aronov says. “Timing is a huge part of how products work in the field. There are so many applications of this technology, but it’s all about early detection and early action.”
The a $16M Series A funding round was led by John Deere with participation from existing investors, MS&AD Ventures, Bee Partners, and UpWest.
