Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup Mitti Labs has closed a $9.5 million Series A round to accelerate deployment of its satellite-powered GeoAI platform across Asian rice-growing regions, the company announced August 5. The raise brings total funding to $12.5 million since the company's 2023 launch.
Aramco Ventures led the round, with participation from Lightspeed India, Godrej Industries Group, Cisco Foundation, Francis Family Fund, and Volta Circle. The capital will fund geographic expansion in India and greenfield project launches in the Philippines and Indonesia, two of Asia's largest rice-producing nations.
The Technology
Mitti Labs' GeoAI platform fuses high-resolution synthetic aperture radar satellite data with field-collected ground truth and physical models to generate digital twins of rice plots at the level of individual farms. The system, developed with NASA support, converts raw SAR imagery into field-level intelligence on crop health, soil moisture, and flooding — data that is largely absent across the fragmented smallholder landscape where most of the world's rice is grown on plots of less than two hectares.
The platform underpins the company's operational push to transition farmers to Alternate Wetting and Drying, an irrigation technique that cuts water consumption by close to 40.0% and reduces methane emissions by more than 50.0% relative to continuously flooded paddies, without sacrificing yields when rigorously applied. Since 2023, Mitti Labs says it has built the largest AWD rice program globally. To date, its programs have saved 500 billion liters of water — equivalent, the company says, to Bengaluru's annual supply.
Why Rice Matters to the Food System
Rice is the defining staple crop for food security across Asia and a critical commodity for global grain traders, food manufacturers, and agricultural input suppliers. It accounts for more than 30.0% of all irrigation water consumed worldwide, and flooded paddy cultivation is a significant source of agricultural methane — a greenhouse gas the company notes is responsible for roughly one third of cumulative climate warming. For food and agribusiness companies navigating scope 3 emissions commitments and supply-chain water risk, the category represents a structural exposure.
Mitti Labs counts Ebro Foods, the Spanish rice and pasta group, along with Syngenta and Cool Effect among its commercial customers — a signal that global food companies are beginning to tie procurement and sustainability programs to verifiable field-level data. The company's 150-person workforce operates the farmer-facing delivery model that sits alongside its technology stack, a structure that distinguishes it from pure remote-sensing analytics plays.
Investor Rationale
Zayed AlAmri, Executive Managing Director at Aramco Ventures, framed the bet around the data gap rather than the technology alone. "Rice covers a fifth of Asia's cultivated land, and it is both a major source of methane and one of the most water-intensive crops grown," he said. "The harder part has been knowing what is actually happening in the fields across millions of small farms. That is what Mitti Labs' AI and satellite technology aims to solve."
Co-founder Xavier Laguarta positioned the company's addressable market in terms of livelihoods as much as emissions. "With our technology and scalable operational model, we can transform how rice is grown, lower emissions and cut water consumption while building resilient livelihoods for 150 million smallholder farmers," he said.
The raise lands as food-and-agriculture investors increasingly look for platforms that can generate auditable sustainability data at scale — a requirement being written into supply-chain due-diligence frameworks across the European Union and major food-company procurement policies. For further context on agri-tech investment trends shaping the food supply chain, see our coverage of precision agriculture funding and sustainable sourcing in grain markets.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
