Gamaya, a fast-growing Swiss AgTech startup, active in the field of digital agriculture, announced it has raised about €10.9 million (12 million CHF) in a Series B financing round, including 4.2 Million CHF raised via convertible bonds earlier. The financing round was led by Mahindra and Mahindra, a global Indian enterprise with an established footprint in agriculture. Existing investors ICOS Capital and VI Partners have also joined the round.
The first time we introduced you to Gamaya was in 2017, when they made it on our “Swiss startups to watch” list. The same year, Gamaya also won the Inception Awards.
Founded in 2015, Gamaya develops high-value crop solutions for its partners and customers based on drone and satellite imagery. Gamaya is an innovator in hyperspectral imaging, embedded cameras, and artificial intelligence. It has developed a unique hyperspectral camera and IP around the translation of spectral imaging data into actionable insights using machine learning. Gamaya works with partners to complement its outstanding technological capabilities with local agronomy knowledge and market access.
“We strongly believe in partnering, and having a strategic investor like Mahindra and Mahindra will help open new doors and develop our ability to combine our technological expertise with the agronomic and market understanding of strategic partners. We’ve been working with Mahindra & Mahindra for a few years now and this successful work materialized in Mahindra’s decision to make an investment” – said Yosef Akhtman, CEO of Gamaya.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is the world’s largest tractor manufacturer by volume with a +40% share of the tractor market in India. Several years ago the company began to actively expand beyond its home market and made a number of strategic acquisitions in different countries to source advanced technologies and to build on-ground presence. In India, Mahindra & Mahindra’s footprint stretches beyond farm equipment into chemicals, seeds and agronomy advisory. M&M’s strategy is to use digital and precision farming technologies to add value to its tractors and farm equipment and provide a fully integrated service to farmers. M&M already has several ongoing digital agriculture services including the digital advisory app MyAgriGuru that provides information critical for the daily decision-making of farmers as well as Tringo, a digitally enabled service that allows farmers to rent tractors and other farm equipment.
Speaking on the strategic partnership, Rajesh Jejurikar, President, Farm Equipment Sector Mahindra & Mahindra said, “With agriculture increasingly becoming technology-intensive, we at Mahindra are investing in the future-ready technologies to provide complete solutions to the global farming community. Our strategic association with Gamaya will enable us to develop and deploy next-generation farming capabilities such as precision agriculture and digital farming technologies. With this partnership, we expect to set new benchmarks in farming and its related services”.
After four years of developing leading-edge imaging technologies, Gamaya now is at the doorstep of commercializing them. The investment will enable the company to focus on commercial activities, further strengthen the commercial team and grow a local presence in 2 target markets. Gamaya will continue investing in building an industrial and scalable IT infrastructure and hardware to support business needs. Building partnerships and launching strategic product development activities based on our core technology are among the key priorities for the company.
Nityen Lal, Managing Partner at ICOS Capital, who are investors in Gamaya, stated: “Digital technology will deliver high-quality actionable information to help farmers realize higher yields while also improving the sustainability of agriculture. Gamaya has advanced technology that is already delivering tangible benefits to farmers. The partnership with Mahindra & Mahindra will accelerate the global rollout of Gamaya crop solutions.”