640 Labs raises $2.7 million to change agriculture with insane data crunching
Agricultural data platform 640 Labs is crunching an incredible amount of numbers on specs including weather, soil type, etc. The company’s cloud-based dashboard platform that collects, stores and analyzes agricultural data can “see things that farmers weren’t able to see before," said Pat Dumstorff, VP of sales and marketing, in March.
Not only do these previously overlooked insights maximize farmers’ profits, but they benefit others who interact with farmers like those in the chemical or crop insurance industries. "Everyone wins with our system," CEO and co-founder Corbett Kull said.
The 640 Labs team itself got a win last week when it closed a $2.65 million seed round. The round will help it leverage the agriculture industry, which makes up about 1 percent of the US’s GDP (that means over $3 billion). The 300 million acres of land in the US produce thousands of dollars in revenue, not to mention thousands of data points via sensors on agricultural equipment.
640 Labs team of engineers utilizes these sensors by unifying the data in the cloud then visualizing and analyzing it in a single dashboard.
"There’s a massive need there that we’re filling in terms of fully utilizing the infrastructure that’s in place,” Corbett said.
The funding will help to beef up 640 Labs’ team and to facilitate tests in Canada and France.
