- In-soil agriculture analytics company CropX announced that it raised $10 million in funding and named John Vikupitz as president
CropX — an in-soil agriculture analytics company — announced that it has raised $10 million in funding and also named John Vikupitz as president. Vikupitz is going to drive the company’s global expansion team with a focus on accelerating market adoption of the first farm management platform to integrate invaluable in-soil data insights at scale.
CropX also announced it closed $10 million in funding to support the company’s continued growth. The new investors in this round include strategic partner Sumitomo Corporation Europe, Armada Investments, and TaL Capital. And they are joined by existing investors like Finistere Ventures, Germin8 Ventures, GreenSoil Investments, Innovation Endeavors, and OurCrowd. With this round of funding, CropX is aiming to amplify its R&D efforts and significantly speed penetration of its disruptive analytics platform throughout a broad cross-section of grower environments.
Some of CropX’s other investors include the venture arms of manufacturing leaders like ICL, Lab IX (the Flex technology accelerator), and Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC).
“CropX provides unrivaled insight based on in-soil data and is setting the standard for technologies that are simple and scalable so farmers can make an immediate, substantial impact on their bottom line,” said Vikupitz in a statement. “I look forward to my new leadership role as part of the CropX team to change how growers around the globe access and use intelligence from below the ground to cultivate more sustainable, productive and profitable farming enterprises. My efforts will also focus on nurturing strategic relationships with firms offering growers complementary technologies.”
Over the past 10 years, Vikupitz served as president and CEO of Netafim USA — which is the largest subsidiary of the global leader in precision irrigation solutions. And while at Netafim, Vikupitz substantially grew the business, developed an industry-pioneering recycled plastics solution, and managed a team of over 300 employees.
Vikupitz also held a variety of sales and marketing leadership roles including director of marketing at Netafim. And earlier in his career, he worked as a sales manager and facility manager for SPX Valve & Controls.
CropX is going to continue to expand its farm management platform — which is already installed around the globe on the fields of top farms, as well as irrigation, seed and fertilizer companies. The platform is built on a critical data element: soil. And
CropX provides the scalable soil sensing layer needed to help farmers’ manage and accurately predict crop needs from irrigation to fertilization and more. Plus CropX integrates the full spectrum of available farm data insights – satellite, weather, crop modeling, topographical data, etc. – with its unmatched soil intelligence to deliver accurate predictive power at scale.
“A precise understanding of what is happening within the soil is critical for crop health and farm profitability, and we combine that soil intelligence with other key data points to deliver easily actionable insights for the farmer,” added CropX CEO Tomer Tzach. “We look forward to tapping the expertise of John Vikupitz, our investors and new strategic partners as we drive the modernization of in-soil insights like satellite imagery transformed above-soil insights in years past.”
