Miraterra, a company revolutionising advanced soil measurement, today announced the close of its seed funding round led by At One Ventures, marking a pivotal moment in the company’s mission to transform soil insight. New investors S2G Ventures, One Small Planet, Overview Capital, iSelect Fund, Starshot Capital, Pelican Ag, and Cisco Foundation also participated in the round.
Soil is the cornerstone of sustainable agriculture, vital for environmental health and food security. Healthy soil is resilient against climate change, sequesters a vast amount of carbon, and sustains life. But our soil is not healthy and the world is taking notice.
Agriculture, in particular, has taken notice and is undergoing a transformation. Practices like precision ag and regenerative farming are taking root, promising better soil, higher profits, and even revenue from carbon markets. But affordable, reliable ways to measure soil health are needed to unlock these benefits. That’s Miraterra’s focus.
Nate Kelly, chief executive officer of Miraterra, said, “A race is on to meet the growing need for affordable, accurate soil data. Some companies are banking on advanced modelling to replace the need for rigorous testing. However, leading soil scientists are constantly making astonishing discoveries about soil and are advocating for even more rigorous testing. Our solution uses a combination of remote sensing, proximal sensing, and advanced modeling to reduce the cost of testing while increasing rigor and reducing uncertainty.”
The seed funding round enabled Miraterra to develop its inaugural, proximal sensing product, the Digitizer. This device combines novel hardware, signal processing, machine learning, and computational chemistry to bring highly-sensitive Raman spectroscopy to new frontiers and digitise soil. The Digitizer represents a significant leap forward in soil measurement technology, making accurate and cost-effective analysis more accessible.
Pelican Ag, a new investor in Miraterra, is a global venture fund regenerating nature, food & farming systems – investing in high growth and high impact technologies, restoring climate, biodiversity and human health. Simon Evill, a partner at Pelican Ag said, “We are proud to invest in Miraterra, a company whose mission and novel technology aligns with our mission to accelerate regenerative farming transitions globally.
“Miraterra enables soil labs to dramatically improve soil sample analysis, accuracy and streamline internal processes – unlocking a step change for the industry. We are excited to support their vision and help drive meaningful change in agriculture, creating a better future for our land stewards, ecosystem and human health.”
Sanjeev Krishnan, managing partner at S2G Ventures, said, “Our view is that Miraterra’s technology is filling a critical gap in the agritech landscape. By providing consistent, repeatable, cost-effective measurements and insights into soil health, we believe they can enable the next level of precision agriculture and sustainable farming. We’re proud to support Miraterra’s vision of unlocking the full potential of soil to benefit our planet and people.”
Tom Chi, founder of At One Ventures, said, “I searched for 6 years and assessed more than 50 companies until I discovered Miraterra’s ability to see into soil at 1000x better accuracy than the competition. This gives them an insurmountable advantage in revealing mineralogical, hydrological and biological health of soil.”
Miraterra is poised to introduce its Digitizer to the market, targeting soil testing laboratories worldwide. Instead of targeting farmers directly, they’re partnering with trusted labs to build credibility before reaching out to end-users. Kelly said, “Our market research showed us that gaining the trust of agronomists’ and farmers’ partners was crucial. Farmers and agronomists trust their soil testing lab. Thankfully, we’ve identified partners who’ve been seeking a solution like ours and are eager to introduce our Digitizer to their labs. This marks the first step in our mission to revolutionise the way soil is measured.”