New Zealand agtech player gets $6.7m

Finistere-backed agtech accelerator Radicle Growth, Netherlands-based agtech investor Rabo Private Equity and Canada’s Canopy Rivers also participated.  The company will use the fresh capital in part to build out data science and machine learning teams.

BioLumic uses UV-based technologies to activate natural mechanisms in seeds and seedlings that increase plant growth, vigor, and natural defense mechanisms, which in turn results in increased yields at harvest. Lettuce, broccoli, strawberries and tomatoes are the company’s core focus crops. It also plans to explore indoor farming and protected-environment, high-value crops, including cannabis.

"It is exciting to consider the broad range of benefits that BioLumic technology can offer to both seed producers and growers across a range of crops – from improved yield and consistency to reduction, and potentially replacement, of certain chemical and biological inputs," Adrian Percy, newly appointed CTO of Finistere and the former head of R&D for the crop science division of Bayer, said in a statement.

Agtech is considered a prospective investment category in Australasia but largely dependent on foreign capital channels. Recent New Zealand activity in this space includes an NZ$5 million ($3.3 million) round for Ubco, a company that makes electric utility bikes for farmers, and an A$8 million ($5.5 million) IPO for CropLogic, a VC-backed company developing agronomy systems to improve crop yields.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Early-stage
• New Zealand
• Agriculture