Disappointing exit for fruits & vegetables quality testing tech company SCiO
Israeli agritech company CropX acquires startup SCiO to expand its platform capabilities for analyzing the quality and composition of agricultural produce throughout the entire growing cycle
Israeli agritech company CropX is acquiring the Israeli startup SCiO, which specializes in technology for testing quality, food composition and agricultural produce in the field. The acquisition is not a successful exit for SCiO, as it has raised $64 million so far since its inception and the purchase price is estimated to be less than this amount. The companies said that the acquisition expands CropX's capabilities throughout the entire growing cycle, from the soil, crop development to harvest, product quality testing and subsequent stages.
SCiO was founded in 2011 in Israel under the name Consumer Physics and has raised approximately $64 million to date. The company is headquartered in Israel and operates in the agriculture and food industries. SCiO's innovative technology is protected by 44 different patents and allows for rapid measurements of the quality and composition of agricultural produce in the field without traditional laboratory tests.
CropX was founded in 2015 and operates in more than 70 countries. The company has raised over $60 million to date, with strategic and financial investors including OurCrowd, NEC Corporation, Aliaxis, Innovation Endeavors and Finistere Ventures. This is the eighth and most significant acquisition to date, which expands its platform capabilities beyond field management and cultivation, to include analysis of the quality and composition of agricultural produce.
"The future of agronomy is not just about providing recommendations, but about the ability to learn from the results. SCiO provides us with the missing piece. By connecting agronomic recommendations with harvest results and produce quality, we are laying the foundation for a new generation of agronomic intelligence and accelerating our vision to build the most comprehensive intelligence platform in the world of agriculture," says Tomer Tzach, CEO of CropX.
