Impact investors commit $3.2m to drone tech company

Swiss agtech company Gamaya has closed on $3.2 million for deployment of its drone-mounted analytics systems for crop monitoring.

Investors in the Series A round include family offices the Sandoz Foundation and Glasshouse, social-impact investment fund Seed4Equity and venture capital firm VI Partners.

Funding from the Series A round will expand the sales of its diagnostics systems to industrial agri producers. The company claims its drone-mounted technology can increase margins for growers by monitoring crops for disease, pests and weeds, and predict yields.

Gamaya was spun out from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2015. The company currently markets two products designed for Brazilian soy and sugarcane growers. The company bills its products as a means to shift toward more sustainable agri practices by allowing growers to use inputs more efficiently and increase yields.

“There is a clear imperative to address the food challenge in a sustainable manner. Consuming better also requires to produce better at all level of the food value chain,” said Seed4equity chief executive Taha Ben Mrad. “Gamaya has all the ingredients to become an instrumental actor of this change.”

The Sandoz Foundation was established in 1964 by the sculptor and painter Edouard-Marcel Sandoz, the son of the founder of pharmaceutical firm Sandoz. The foundation focuses on socially conscious long-term holdings in companies in the pharma agribusiness and other sectors.

Glasshouse manages the family office of Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. Gamaya is the company’s second investment outside the real estate sector.

Seed4equity is a Swiss venture fund formed by Mrad, dedicated to social impact investments. VI Partners is a Swiss venture capital firm established by McKinsey and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2001.