AgroPages-Cool Planet raises additional $9 million to commercialize Soil Health Product-Agricultural news

Cool Planet has announced the first close of a new financing round to commercialize the company’s Cool Terra Engineered Biocarbon business. This $9 million in funding follows a previous $9-million round from Cool Planet’s existing investors, the final tranche of which closed in January of 2016. Agustín Coppel, who is co-leading this round, will now have a representative on the Cool Planet board of directors.

North Bridge Venture Partners, which has invested in every financing of Cool Planet since the company’s founding, co-anchored the $9-million raise alongside Coppel. The current round remains open for other existing and new financial and strategic agricultural investors to come into the company to help achieve Cool Planet’s tremendous potential in improving soil health, increasing water and nutritional efficiency, and delivering microbials, biologicals, and nutritionals. This most recent funding follows the announcement of Cool Planet’s board promoting Jim Loar to president & CEO of the company’s agricultural subsidiary.

“We are excited with our recent investments into Cool Planet, a company that has brought science to nature in a way that we are certain will revolutionize the agricultural industry, making soils healthy again as the basis of healthier crops, and consequently healthier people,” says Agustín Coppel.

The Cool Terra Engineered Biocarbon platform helps improve soil health while sequestering carbon in the soil. The innovative product is now in commercial deployment, with announcements earlier this year that J.R. Simplot and Triangle Chemical Company signed on as partners for its development and distribution.

“This financing round is different from previous rounds in that it is specifically associated with the advancement of our agricultural business. Even in a down agricultural economy, we are attracting financial and strategic agriculture investors like Agustín Coppel,” said Loar. “Coppel, as a long-time investor, has seen first-hand the tremendous benefits that Cool Terra provides for increasing crop yields, more efficiently utilizing inputs, and providing growers with an excellent return.”

The success Cool Planet has experienced in 2016 lays the foundation for an even brighter future for the company and its Cool Terra Engineered Biocarbon, according to Loar.

“We’ve established a lot of momentum, when you combine the response we’ve received from the investment community with the distribution and development agreements we’ve established. Plus, we’ve invested heavily in a public and private commercial trial initiative that’s unprecedented for the biocarbon category,” Loar says. “Our goal – and we believe we’re in a great position to achieve it – is to convert the momentum of 2016 into even greater commercial success for Cool Terra and Cool Planet in 2017 and beyond.”