Nabilah S
According to AgFunder’s first-ever Asia-Pacific AgriFoodtech Investment Report, funding for farm tech in the Asia-Pacific region doubled in 2021, bringing the total amount raised to $2.2 billion.
Most of this growth was caused by a few large deals and a 17.5% increase in deals from the previous year.
Even in 2022, startups have kept up this pace. So far, in the first half of 2022, farm tech companies have raised $1.1 billion. This is true even though the tech industry is going through a downturn and Asia-Pacific agri food tech investment is still primarily a downstream game.
AgFunderFarmtech categories and technologies
Farmtech is all the technologies that farmers use to run their farms. Most of these categories are upstream, which means they are close to the farm or lab. Farm-to-Consumer grocery and Agrifood Finance are two exceptions to this rule.
Among the farm tech categories are:
- Agribusiness marketplaces
- Farm management software, sensing and IoT
- Ag Biotechnology
- Farm-to-consumer grocery
- Novel farming systems
- Midstream technologies
- Farm mechanization + equipment
- Agrifood finance
- Bioenergy and biomaterials
Top nations to invest in farm technology in Asia-Pacific.
India has the region’s most advanced farm tech ecosystem, with startups in every type of farm tech. In 2021, $364 million was made in the country’s Agribusiness Marketplaces category. During the same period, its Farm Management Software & Sensing category brought in $106 million.
China was the second most active country for farm tech investment in 2021, closing deals worth $605 million. This represents a year-on-year increase of sixty per cent.
Ag Biotech was a vital sector for China, and notable companies such as Mojia Bioscience and MoonBiotech were successful in their capital-raising efforts. In addition, robotics was a significant sector, as evidenced by the agricultural drone service provider XAG’s 182 million dollar Series C funding round.
Indonesia also has several farm technology innovations focusing on Agribusiness Marketplaces.
