Indigo Agriculture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Agriculture |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Headquarters | Boston, MA |
Key people | Ron Hovsepian Geoffrey von Maltzahn |
| Website | indigoag |
Indigo Agriculture is a Boston, Massachusetts-based agricultural technology company that works with plant microbes, aiming to improve yields of cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice.[1] The company also offers crop storage and other logistics programs for farmers.[2]
David Perry, who had led the company since 2014, was replaced as CEO by Ron Hovsepian in September 2020. Perry also left the company’s board.[3][4]
In 2013, Indigo was founded as Symbiota by Noubar Afeyan and Geoffrey von Maltzahn through Flagship Pioneering partners David Berry and Ignacio Martinez,[5] led by former CEO David Perry, as a company developing environmentally friendly microbes that could be applied to seeds to produce better yielding crops.[4][6] In February 2016, the company rebranded as Indigo Agriculture.
The company raised over $300 million in venture capital funding, with help from investors Flagship Pioneering,[7] the Alaska Permanent Fund, Baillie Gifford, the Investment Corporation of Dubai, and Activant Capital.[8] Indigo’s Series D in 2016 was noted to be the largest private equity financing in the agricultural technology sector.[9]
In September 2017, the company raised USD$156 million, giving it a total valuation of USD$1.4 billion and making it a "unicorn", the term given to start-ups worth more than USD$1 billion.[10] In September 2018, Indigo closed its Series E funding, bringing in $250 million.[11] Later in 2018, Indigo acquired satellite startup TellusLabs, which had been using satellite imaging and geospatial intelligence to create a living map of the world’s food supply.[12]
Indigo was named the top company of CNBC’s 2019 Disruptor 50 list.[13] In 2020, Indigo raised $500 million from investors including FedEx and the Alaska Permanent Fund,[4] and had a valuation of $3.5 billion.[14] In 2020, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel joined Indigo’s board of directors.[15]
In August 2023, reports from the Israeli R&D partnership Unic-Tech indicated that after a recent round of funding, Indigo's valuation was down to just $200 million. This is a 94% drop from the $3.5 billion at which it was valued two years ago.[16]
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