Funding worldwide for agriculture-technology startups in the first six months of 2016 dropped 20 percent, to $1.8 billion, from the same period last year, even as the number of overall deals rose, Reuters reports.
In 2015, venture capitalists and other investors pumped a record $4.6 billion into ag-tech companies that make drones, weather sensors, seed traits, and other products designed to make farming and related businesses more efficient.
“Investment slipped in the drones and robotics and food e-commerce categories, while soil and crop technology experienced an uptick,” says Reuters.
Despite the drop in investment, ag-tech remains an active and promising sector. Earlier this year two of the largest seed and agricultural chemical companies in the world, DuPont and Bayer joined three other partners to form Radicle, a $15-million accelerator fund to back early-stage agricultural technology companies. And in June, the White House hailed the FAA’s release of regulations for lightweight drones that “can monitor crop health in real time for farmers who are trying to manage farms that are hundreds or even thousands of acres.”