Israel’s N-Drip, developer of smart irrigation systems that help farmers save water and increase yields at low cost, has raised $44 million in a Series C financing round to help it expand its global footprint.
The funding was led by the Liechtenstein Group, an asset manager and investor in food and agriculture owned by Liechtenstein’s royal family, with participation from US investment management firm Hamilton Lane and water tech investor Natural Ventures.
Existing investors including Granot Group, Bridges Israel Impact Fund, Kibbutz Ein Harod Ehud and a group of US-based investors also participated in the financing round. N-Drip said the funding round could be expanded in response to investor demand.
To date, N-Drip has raised approximately $80 million from strategic and financial investors in the US, Europe and Israel.
Ariel Halperin and Ran Ben-Or, former director of Israel’s Water Authority, Prof. Founded in 2015 by Uri Shani, N-Drip has developed what it says is a system that allows areas that use floodwaters for irrigation to be more productive. Instead of precision drip irrigation.
“The current funding round will support the company’s rapid growth as the global water crisis continues as farmers and policy makers seek solutions that allow them to continue growing food and fiber despite less water,” said N-Drip CEO. Will allow to keep.” Aaron Pollack.
“Farmers of all sizes and all geographies will be able to access our transformative technologies to help ensure sustainability and continued farm income, while joining the worldwide effort to meaningfully reduce agricultural greenhouse gases,” he added. So to receive.”
N-Drip is an Israeli startup that has developed a drip irrigation system that works with gravity and not energy. (NDRIP)
Flood irrigation, perhaps the oldest method of watering crops, is still one of the most widely used methods of irrigation in the world today. About 85 percent of agricultural land globally, or more than 600 million acres, use this system, including in hot and very dry places like Arizona, in which water is delivered to the field by a pipe or ditch, and water just flows over the ground through the crop.
This system is wasteful of both water – it is believed that about 50% is lost to evaporation or infiltration of unirrigated areas – and fertilizer, nor does it produce optimum yields.
N-Drip says that farmers who switch from flood irrigation to using its system can see up to 50% water savings, up to 33% increase in yield, a 50% reduction in fertilizer, and reductions in emissions such as carbon and methane. Provides benefits of 50% reduction in greenhouse gases. 85%.
One of its inventions is N-Drip Connect, a sensor-based system that allows farmers to monitor their field and provides real-time recommendations for irrigation and fertilizer use for better water and nutrient management . The agritech firm said the system predicts crop size with an accuracy of six weeks before the exact harvest.
Based in Beit Xi’an, N-Drip says it works with customers in 17 countries, with three main business centers in Australia, India and the southwestern US. Its management, R&D and production are based in Israel, with approximately 100 employees working in sales, R&D, production and engineering.
N-Drip recently announced that it has entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with Liechtenstein-owned RiceTech to market its system in rice fields in the US, India and other countries. RiceTech is one of the world’s largest producers of hybrid rice seeds.
“We look forward to helping drive the global adoption of N-Drip’s irrigation technology, especially in rice,” said Johannes Meran, Liechtenstein CEO and Managing Partner. “We believe that the combination of these two technologies has the power to transform the way rice is grown and substantially eliminate the negative carbon footprint of rice cultivation.”
