Investment focus · AgTech & FarmTech
Narrow on purpose.
Every new dollar Innova invests goes into agriculture. Within that, we concentrate on four problems where technology changes a grower's economics and an early check has the most leverage.
The thesis
Four problems worth solving on every acre.
Inputs
Seed, feed, nutrition, crop protection and biologicals, vaccines and antibiotics that improve outcomes without raising unit cost and has a positive ROI within a year.
Insignum AgTech · Lilac Agriculture · AGRITX · Stony Creek Colors
Labor
Robotics and autonomy aimed at work that is dangerous, repetitive or unstaffable. The bar is not novelty — it is whether the machine survives a real season.
Grain Weevil · American Autonomy · Bird's Eye Robotics
On-farm data
Sensors and instruments that capture ground truth in the field, the bin and the barn, rather than inferring it from satellites and models.
SwineTech · Soiltech Wireless · EarthSense · HerdDogg · Microbiometer
Actionable reports
Software that turns agronomic data into a decision a grower can act on before the window closes. Dashboards are not the product; decisions are.
iYOTAH · Tractor Zoom · SwineTech
Criteria
How we decide.
- Stage
- Pre-seed, seed and Series A. We are frequently the first institutional money in, and we are comfortable being the first call.
- Check size
- $100K–$250K at seed and $1M–$2.5M at Series A, with reserves for the companies that work.
- Geography
- The United States, with a genuine preference for rural and underserved markets. We hold a USDA rural business investment license.
- What earns a yes
- A defensible technical advantage, a founder who has spent real time with farmers, and a product whose value shows up in a farm's economics — not just in a pitch deck.
- What we skip
- Consumer food brands, farmland funds, and technology looking for an agricultural problem to attach itself to.
The legacy portfolio
Still ours. Just not where new capital goes.
Innova's earlier funds backed MedTech, software and logistics companies, many of them still operating and several since acquired. We continue to support them — but new investments are AgTech and FarmTech only.