農業成為硅谷創業大熱領域

????硅谷常被指責“隨波逐流”。看看那些對農業技術趨之若鶩的初創公司，說“隨波逐流”并不為過。如今，許多最著名的風險投資家和創業者都致力于向農場提供最新的計算機技術——數據分析、云計算、移動應用。

????上周三，農業軟件初創公司Granular表示，他們已經在新一輪融資中獲得了安德森·霍洛維茨、谷歌風投和科斯拉創投等公司共計1.87億美元的投資支持。這是Granular的第二輪融資，新加入的投資者還包括Tao Capital Partners、Emory Investment Management、Fall Line Capital和H. Barton Asset Management。

????Granular去年正式亮相。它脫胎于2009年誕生，隨后解體的Solum公司。Solum銷售土壤試驗和數據技術的部門被農業巨頭孟山都收購，并被并入孟山都于2013年從數據創業公司氣候集團收購的數據團隊。

????Solum未被收購的技術，即供農民使用的軟件、云服務、移動應用和協作工具，最終促成了Granular的誕生。如今，Granular的軟件幫助許多農民高效地管理自己的農場，降低了水和化肥的使用量。公司的技術能讓農民實時掌握農場的詳細數據，從而做出更好的決策。（Granular表示，他們目前擁有幾十名客戶，產品覆蓋的土地總面積超過100萬英畝。）

????例如，俄亥俄州的農民馬克·布萊恩特就在使用Granular的軟件管理農場的運營、預算狀況并跟蹤庫存。Granular在去年推出了這款軟件，7名美國中西部地區的農民也為這款軟件的設計做出了貢獻。

????試圖把技術賣給農民的初創公司有好幾十家，Granular只是其中之一。該公司主要面向數千位大農場主，他們擁有全美三分之一的土地。這些大農場主正越來越多地購買小農場的土地，同時也在尋找新的管理工具。

????農業在采用技術方面的進展始終緩慢，然而農民卻越來越希望利用技術減少水和化肥的使用，以降低成本。干旱導致的水資源匱乏現象估計會越來越普遍。隨著2050年世界人口達到90億，農民需要利用更少的資源生產更多的糧食。

????氣候變化導致極端天氣越來越多，也使得務農風險越來越大。農民們試圖采用更多技術，以更好地應對潛在的天氣問題。

????根據Cleantech Group的數據，在2013年至2014年間，硅谷對農業和食品類初創公司的投資額度翻了一番。2014年，農業食品領域（不包含生物燃料，包含部分按需制作的食品公司）的151家初創公司共得到了9.76億美元的資助。

????這種快節奏的融資似乎會在今年持續下去。今年5月，農業數據公司Farmers Business Network從谷歌風投、Kleiner Perkins和 DBL Investors處募得了1500萬美元投資。其他的農業技術初創公司還包括FarmLink、Adapt-N、Farmers Edge、FarmLogs、aWhere、Granular、Farmeron、OnFarm、Agralogics、Blue River Technology和Precision Hawk。（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：任文科

????Silicon Valley, often accused of following the herd, is doing that quite literally when it comes to startups building technology for farmers. Some of the most well known venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are now focused on bringing the latest computing technologies — data analytics, cloud computing, mobile apps — to farms.

????On Wednesday, farming software startup Granular said that it has raised a new round of $18.7 million in funding from investors Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. New investors in the round, which is Granular’s second, included Tao Capital Partners, Emory Investment Management, Fall Line Capital, and H. Barton Asset Management.

????Granular debuted last year from the split of another startup called Solum that was founded in 2009. Agriculture giant Monsanto acquired the half of Solum’s business that sold soil testing and data tech to farmers and folded it into the data team it acquired in 2013 from data startup Climate Corp.

????Solum’s remaining technology, which is software, cloud-services, mobile apps and collaboration tools for farmers, was spun out into Granular. Now Granular’s software is helping a handful of farmers manage their farms more efficiently, using less water and less fertilizer. The tech enables them to tap into detailed data about how their farms operate in real time and, presumably, make better decisions. (Granular says it has several dozen customers covering about 1 million acres).

????For example, Ohio farmer Mark Bryant has been using Granular’s software to manage his farm’s operations, budget, and inventory tracking. Granular introduced its software last year with seven Midwestern farmers who also helped the company design the original software.

????Granular is just one of dozens of startups trying to sell tech to farmers. The company is focused on the thousands of big farm owners that account for a third of U.S. farmland. These large farmers are increasingly buying up land from smaller farming operations and are looking for new tools to manage it all.

????Not only has the agriculture industry been slow to adopt tech, but farmers are increasingly looking to use tech to reduce their use of water and fertilizer to save money. Water shortages from droughts are expected to become more common. As the world population hits 9 billion in 2050, farmers will have to produce more food, with less resources.

????Extreme weather aggravated by climate change is also making farming more risky. Farmers are looking to use more tech to better deal with the potential weather problems.

????Between 2013 and 2014, Silicon Valley’s interest in backing agriculture and food-related startups doubled in terms of deal size, according to data from the Cleantech Group. In 2014, 151 startups focused on agriculture and food (not including biofuels, but including some of the on-demand food startups) were funded to the tune of $976 million.

????That funding FAST-PACE looks like it will continue this year. In May farming data startup Farmers Business Network raised $15 million from Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and DBL Investors. Other farming tech startups include FarmLink, Adapt-N,Farmers Edge, FarmLogs, aWhere, Granular,Farmeron, OnFarm, Agralogics, Blue River Technologyand Precision Hawk.