News and Analysis on Global Ag Innovation, Investment and Sustainability
AgroSustain and Herd Advance have won the two categories of Tesco’s 2026 Agri-tech Challenge, giving both companies the opportunity to test their technologies within the retailer’s supply chain and demonstrate their commercial potential to farmers and...
Start-up profile
From a warehouse fire to a biologicals business targeting 2 billion acres, Pennsylvania-based Holganix believes soil probiotics, environmental markets and data can accelerate farmers’ transition to regenerative agriculture
Saudi ag robotics startup TerraSense is moving from research to commercial deployment, with pilot projects planned in China, Italy and Saudi Arabia
A Japanese land-based aquaculture startup, ARK, has raised JPY1.3bn (US$8.23m) in a Series A round to fund its expansion plans to the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia
German agtech Stenon recently raised €18 million to take its rapid soil-testing technology global. Founder Niels Grabbert tells AgNavigator how work originally inspired by his father’s cancer diagnosis evolved into a system designed to give farmers...
With almost a month left to go, this year’s Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit promises a stellar line speaker lineup from Mahindra and Mahindra, Olam Agri, Suntory Holdings, ADM, DBS and more.
Blue Farm has raised JPY350m (US$2.3m) in Series A funding to expand a model that channels corporate spending into tea farm preservation as Japan’s ageing tea sector struggles to meet growing global demand for matcha
Voice of the Farmer
Wes Hepker and Daniela Williams share their story on how they went from corporate America to becoming rural farmers in the Driftless region of the Midwest
New Zealand is investing NZ$1.84m (US$1.09m) in a project developing hyperspectral imaging technology capable of detecting internal apple defects, maturity and firmness without cutting fruits open.
Start-up profile
From conflict-scarred farmland in Ukraine to contaminated mining sites around the world, soil pollution is becoming an increasingly urgent challenge. Imperial College spinout RemePhy believes genetically enhanced plants could offer a faster and cheaper...
Thailand-based agtech company Living Roots aims to develop a comprehensive suite of agricultural inputs with the help of AI and an expanded scientific team.
The UK government’s new £20 million farm automation and robotics competition has been welcomed by agtech innovators, who say public funding plays a vital role in moving technologies from prototype to commercial deployment. But companies also stress that...
A string of setbacks in the insect protein sector does not invalidate the model but highlights which approaches work and which do not, says the co-founder of InsectBiotech, which has raised €7.2m to scale production in Andalusia.
Foodtech accelerator Eatable Adventures is looking beyond the food sector for the next wave of agrifood innovation, launching a new equity-free programme aimed at helping start-ups apply technologies from industries such as healthcare, aerospace and...
Regions with world-leading agricultural industries cannot assume agtech start-ups and investment will follow automatically. A new study of eight Midwest states concludes that successful agtech ecosystems are the result of deliberate ecosystem building,...
Wild Bioscience has acquired independent breeder F1 Seed in a move it says creates Britain’s first independent precision-breeding wheat business. The acquisition is an attempt to solve one of agricultural biotechnology’s biggest commercial challenges:...
Agri-biotech start-up BugBiome has picked up a £500,000 Innovate UK grant to develop a biological insecticide against cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB), marking the company’s expansion beyond aphid control and into one of UK arable farming’s most...
Start-up profile
German start-up Orbem raised €55.5 million to expand its AI-powered MRI technology from poultry into fruit and vegetables. The company is using industrial-scale MRI scanning to detect quality issues inside produce, reduce food waste and build what it...
Start-up profile
Two biologists who met in a university book club are using AI to tackle one of agriculture’s biggest challenges: developing climate-resilient crops faster and cheaper than traditional breeding programmes. With partnerships already in place and ambitions...
Agri-tech companies looking to crack the US market need to rethink how they approach investors, according to speakers at a recent San Francisco event
Switzerland is directing a larger share of its venture capital into deep tech than any other country globally, with around 63% of funding flowing to science-driven start-ups, according to the newly released Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026
Breedr and Biotangents will test their technologies in one of the world’s most demanding farming environments, using New Zealand as a launchpad for international growth
Start-up profile
From monitoring hive health to tracking entire ecosystems, HiveTracks is using data from bees to help companies and farmers quantify biodiversity – and potentially unlock new environmental markets
Tokyo-based start-up Terrafarm has raised around JPY100m (USD624,182) in seed funding to accelerate photosynthesis and robotics research as it targets its long-term goal of space agriculture
Supermarket giant urges cross-industry collaboration to move technologies from trial to scale, as cost pressures and supply shocks reshape fertiliser markets
Decision intelligence start-up says domain-trained AI can compress planning cycles from days to minutes, helping agri-food operators act faster in increasingly volatile markets
With its first on-farm pilot, Sixteen44 aims to prove its “world-first” ability to destroy diffuse methane emissions from cattle – without touching the animal – at scale
Agritechnica Asia 2026
A Thailand-based startup is working to convert agricultural waste into biochar, carbon credits, and ultimately green heat, to prove that a multi-revenue circular model can work commercially
Reservoir incentivizes new members to join its agtech innovation community with a new free tier, while start-ups navigate a challenging capital environment
Thai startup RegenSoil claims that its enhanced biochar can fully replace soil, enabling soilless cultivation while improving yield and plant health.
Pandawa Agri Indonesia pushes microbial‑friendly soil ameliorant to reduce smallholder farmers’ reliance of conventional fertilisers amid global shipping disruptions.
A council of investors are coming together to address lingering agtech capital issues and how to scale up innovative technologies
Retail giant introduces new two-track model to help early-stage and market-ready agtech scale across its supply chain
Start-up profile
Dutch agtech founder Peter Millenaar argues that conventional spraying misses up to 20% of crops – and says only plant-level precision will deliver the next leap in agricultural productivity
Start-up profile
A Swedish start-up promising near‑zero nitrogen leakage is betting that soaring fertiliser prices, stricter EU regulation and geopolitical instability will finally push farmers to rethink how nutrients are delivered to crops
Bayer has become the first corporate sponsor of Norwich Research Park’s new BioTransitions programme, raising hopes that more UK agri‑food biotech start-ups will receive the targeted support they need to scale from seed funding to Series A – and avoid...
Brazilian farmers’ reliance on WhatsApp is laying the ground work for an AI agricultural revolution in the country
With capital tightening and exits slow to materialise, Leaps by Bayer’s Derek Norman argues that agtech must adopt a tougher, more disciplined mindset – testing to fail early, not to validate success – if it wants to remain investable
Start-up profile
As peptides, dsRNA and other fragile biological actives move closer to market, Italian nano‑biotech Nanomnia believes growth will increasingly come from developers who need delivery to be enabling, not incremental
As climate stress squeezes farmer margins and fractures the global food system, SOSV’s Po Bronson believes rising pain could finally accelerate agtech adoption. But only if the sector learns to fund innovation beyond venture capital and embraces...
Swiss precision‑ag specialist Ecorobotix will assemble its flagship ARA sprayer in Kansas as part of a $50 million expansion, creating 80 jobs and accelerating the rollout of plant‑level crop protection technology tailored for the demands of US specialty...
World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit San Francisco 2026
Reservoir Farms is bringing the agtech start-up community together in Salinas, California — creating the future of farming in the process
World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit San Francisco 2026
AgTechNavigator Editors Ryan Daily and Oliver Morrison unpack the top takeaways from the 2026 edition of the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco
Start-up profile
Belgium’s VIB institute, known for generating world‑class plant biotech companies, believes it has found its next success story in Rainbow Crops; a start‑up combining multiplex genome editing, AI and advanced phenotyping to deliver climate‑resilient,...
Exclusive
Commodity insights platform provider Helios AI is helping buyers make sense of supply chain volatility, whether it is climate change or geopolitical impacts
AgZen’s commercial scale up continues, with the AI-based precision spraying company anticipating to cover 2 million acres in 2026 across three continents
Bindbridge aims to commercialise AI‑designed molecular glues that could unlock entirely new herbicide modes of action, with US and Brazil markets seen as the fastest near‑term opportunities
Start-up profile
As ag equipment becomes more advanced, the skills gap in rural regions is widening. Questr believes training local technicians, not new tools, will unlock the next wave of agtech adoption
Israeli biotech and gene-editing company PlantArcBio is partnering with Agroceres Group subsidiary Helix Sementes e Biotecnologia to develop drought-resilient corn for the South American market
Japanese aquaculture firm Smolt Inc. has successfully cultivated farmed cherry salmon twice the usual size by using a heat-tolerant, selectively bred strain and an all-female triploid system.