Agtech companies are increasingly turning to use of satellites, instead of drones, for precision farming and other applications, New Food Finance Data show.

At New Food Finance, we have tracked more than 3,300 companies directly focused on developing environmentally friendly products and services, in food production. We have classified these companies according to more than 1,700 sectors, markets and technologies, and recorded every related company-level fund-raising and M&A transaction, or $150 billion of deals in total.

Drones and satellites are used for wide-ranging agriculture applications, most notably for precision farming to map fields digitally, for example to record soil moisture, as well as crop yield, nitrogen levels or health. Such data can be useful, to minimise applications of water, fertiliser and pesticide sprays.

Other remote sensing applications include so-called advanced phenotyping, to help crop breeders rapidly review crop performance according to certain traits. And satellite data, in particular, can be used for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of environmental performance, including farm practices or soil carbon levels, to boost supply chain transparency.

Our “chart of the week” above plots the year a company was founded, by its focus technology, filtering for drone and satellite-based technologies, or use of both. We find that use of satellite data is increasingly dominating, for more recently founded companies. In total, the chart explores the technologies of 240 companies, founded since 2013, noting sample sizes are smaller for more recent years, since companies founded very recently are more likely to be operating invisibly.

The steady fall in use of drone data could reflect the target applications of more recently founded companies. We have observed, for example, that our “carbon and biodiversity” sector is growing rapidly, as well as companies focused on soil carbon and nature MRV, both of which fit use of satellite data.

Following are examples of recently founded companies using satellite-based data:

• Amini (founded 2023) – Amini is a Nairobi-based climate-tech startup which says it aims to address an African environmental data gap using artificial intelligence and satellite technology. The company has developed a data aggregation platform that integrates diverse data sources, including weather, in-field sensors and proprietary customer data, into satellite-based, square-meter resolution.

• Improvin’ (founded 2022) – Improvin’ says it helps agri-food companies measure, report and reduce scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions across their supply chain. It uses satellite data and trained algorithms to detect and verify field boundaries, crop types and rotations, yield prediction and tilling practices, converting these into emissions values according to various standards such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

• Downforce Technologies (founded 2021) – Downforce uses remote sensing to measure soil organic carbon (SOC). A U.S. patent granted to the company states that it uses satellite imagery in combination with machine learning algorithms to classify land use categories and measure natural capital.