Vietnamese agritech startup reaps $4.5m fundraise

Koidra, an agritech startup that operates out of both Seattle and Ho Chi Minh City, has raised US$4.5 million in a seed round led by Ospraie Ag Science (OAS), with participation from Amritam Holdings, Cavallo Ventures, and Foothill Ventures.

The agritech firm was founded by ex-Microsoft engineer Kenneth Tran, who led a winning team at the Tencent-sponsored 2018 Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge.

The company said that its autonomous greenhouse technology can improve yield and reduce waste by combining physics, crop modeling, and machine learning to transform controlled environment agriculture.

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According to Koidra, its technology allows farmers to monitor their growing environments and plants, and it also delivers optimized climate decisions for the growing area. This not only increases output over time, but also minimizes the risk of land environmental damage brought about by intensive farming.

Tran told Tech in Asia that the new funding will be used to improve its core tech, which will be used to eventually create autonomous greenhouses, farms, and factories. In addition, the startup wants to accelerate hiring for tech talent and build a greenhouse farm for research and development purposes in Vietnam.

Most of Koidra’s clients are located in advanced markets like the US and Canada, according to Tran. But the startup wants to “democratize” its tech solutions and make it more affordable to emerging countries that mostly have small-scale farming, such as Vietnam.

“We are impressed with Koidra’s autonomous growing technology and its portfolio of clients that include some of the largest greenhouses and indoor farms in North America. Their strengths fit perfectly with our objective to invest in innovations that help farmers do more with less environmental impact,” said Thomas Wiltrout, director of OAS.

Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and Pinduoduo have been aggressively investing in smart agriculture. The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred a “high-tech greenhouse boom” in China as the country aims to double its “high-efficiency facility agriculture land” to over 300 hectares by 2025.