Israeli-based agritech firm SupPlant has raised an additional R408 million ($27 million) to assist South African and other farmers globally, to adopt digital solutions in fighting climate change.
The company’s technological solutions are already in existence in South Africa and are assisting farmers to transform irrigation methods.
SupPlant says the expanded support to locals comes amid global warming impacting South African farmers, who are dealing daily with the unpredicted climate that is changing rapidly and the constant lack of irrigation water.
The company first announced its plans to expand locally in June last year, when it raised R137 million funding for locals. At the time, it said it intended to change the basic concepts of irrigation through technology.
The latest multimillion-dollar additional support by SupPlant in SA comes on the back of a growing focus on technology to enhance farming, especially in developing countries.
In a statement, SupPlant says its technology uses sensors that will be placed on the plants and their surroundings, which radiate the plant’s data on how much water the plant actually needs to maximise growth, to the cloud.
This data, the company says, is then translated through the use of artificial intelligence and big data to irrigation models, recommendations and actionable insights.
In SA, the SupPlant solution is represented and distributed by AECI Plant Health.
The $27 million earmarked for South Africa and other countries was raised in SupPlant’s funding round, which was led by Red Dot Capital Partners, with participation from Menomadin Foundation, Smart-Agro Fund, Mivtah Shamir, Deshpande Foundation, PBFS and Maor Investments.
"The funds raised in this round will allow us to invest in the South African market and open other markets as well,” says Ori Ben Ner, CEO of SupPlant.
“We also plan to continue to develop our product in order to help farmers in South Africa fight climate change. It is far superior from any common practice available and is built for the vast majority of farmers on earth – smallholders that can’t afford access to hardware-intense technology and unique knowledge.”
For the funders, Atad Peled, principal at Red Dot, comments on the transaction: “We were impressed by SupPlant’s abilities and recent expansion into strategic markets. We were also inspired by their goal: working with smallholder farms, which usually do not have access to agritech. Food security will be a major issue in coming years, and we feel certain SupPlant’s solution will have a stand-out role in it.”
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