On Tuesday, a landmark M&A deal was announced in the fertile fields of agtech. Canada’s Semios, an agtech pioneer that has developed a “precision-farming-as-a-service” tool for permanent crops, announced that it will acquire Australian farm manager Agworld, whose platform has managed 100 million farm acres in five countries.
The combined company will become one of the world’s largest independent agtech solution providers, with a client list spanning the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South Africa, and creating a single, integrated Full Crop Cycle Management Ecosystem for growers.
“Through the acquisition of Agworld, Semios is furthering its commitment to simplifying the grower’s experience through leveraging technology to deliver critical insights,” Semios CEO Dr. Michael Gilbert said in a comment on the deal. “Agworld and Semios offer farmers complementary solutions that are helping growers manage risk and optimize yields, more sustainably.
“The true impact of our combined forces in the global agricultural industry will soon be realized through the increased velocity of our R&D efforts and getting new products to market, benefitting growers who are being tested by Mother Nature like never before,” Gilbert added.
“Empowering growers with data for better analysis, insight and action is at the core of what we do,” Agworld CEO Doug Fitch said. “The agricultural industry has long demanded the benefits of managing their crops from start to finish with a single solution, which is why I’m so excited about this next step of the journey for both Agworld and Semios together. The availability of important data to growers and their stakeholders for real-time decision-making through one platform is key to improving the sustainable performance of farming operations.”
The Agworld deal marks the latest in a 2021 buying bonanza for Semios, which made two acquisitions in June, nabbing agriculture and farm data provider Centricity (of Washington State) and farm automation developer Altrac (of California).
Agtech investors and ag-watchers can likely anticipate more precision farming deals in the near future. This week, Israel‘s Good Company, Agoro Carbon Alliance, Strauss Israel, and Smart Agro Tech, with participation from VC fund LeumiTech, Meitar, ERB and AWS the AgTech Mission. The Mission is actively seeking startups focused on the food and agriculture sphere, from growing, harvesting, packaging, storage, transportation, processing and marketing, to pitch Israeli investors for seed capital of up to $250,000, with possible additional commitments from the Smart Agro Fund.
