Koidra raises $4.5m seed funding to bring intelligent automation to greenhouses and beyond

Koidra, an intelligent automation (IA) platform company based out of Seattle, has raised $4.5 million in its seed round. Ospraie Ag Science (OAS) led this round of funding, with participation from Amritam Holdings, Cavallo Ventures, and Foothill Ventures.

Koidra was founded by the lead of Microsoft Research's winning team at the inaugural Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge. They were the only team to outperform expert Dutch growers, and they also demonstrated the massive yield and profitability improvements achievable through intelligent greenhouse automation.

Intelligent automation combines multiple disciplines—such as artificial intelligence, mathematics, and physics—to transform real-time data into useful decisions. Koidra delivers "decision intelligence" to their clients for improved operational decision making, a top technology trend identified by analyst firm Gartner. Besides operational efficiency gains, Koidra solutions also advance manufacturing businesses on their journey to achieving hyperautomation, another strategic technology trend identified by Gartner.

Why it Matters

In the age of precision agriculture, advancements in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) will come from improvements to production efficiency. Koidra's award-winning autonomous greenhouse technology improves yield and reduces waste by combining physics, crop modeling, and machine learning to transform CEA. This IA technology augments growers' abilities to monitor their growing environments and plants, delivers optimized climate decisions for the growing area, and improves yields over time.

Koidra is extending its core tech to improve operations in industrial IoT and real-time control applications, such as for machine and factory automation. The goal in each case is to eventually create autonomous greenhouses, farms, and factories.

"Koidra is obsessed with modernizing basic industries and making them more sustainable. We are excited to be partnering with quality investors from both the AgTech and DeepTech spheres. Their collective industry knowledge and connections will add enormous value as we deploy our products, and their funding will help Koidra advance our vision much quicker," says Kenneth Tran, the CEO of Koidra.

What investors say

"We are impressed with Koidra's autonomous growing technology, and its portfolio of clients that include some of the largest greenhouses and indoor farms in North America. Their strengths fit perfectly with our objective to invest in innovations that help farmers do more with less environmental impact," says Thomas Wiltrout, Director of OAS.

"We believe that Koidra, with its principled research approach and experience in enterprise software, will deliver substantial positive impact to the Ag industry" observes Brett Morris, Managing Director of Cavallo Ventures.

"We believe IA is a key driver for increasing efficiency and sustainability moving forward, and we are excited to invest in Koidra as a tech leader in IA for climate control, farm automation, and advanced manufacturing," comments Eric Rosenblum, Managing Partner at Foothill Ventures.