The French agricultural technology company Weenat aims to strengthen the resilience of agriculture to climate change through the use of cutting-edge technologies. For this purpose, the startup developed a wireless weather station and has since gained a lot of know-how in the area of sensor technology. The young company, founded in 2014, has now raised a Series C financing round totaling 8.5 million euros.
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Weenat is profitable ten years after it was founded
The financing round was led by the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund. Other investors in this round include Pymwymic, LIBERSET and IDIA Capital Investissement. The funding will enable Weenat to expand its sensor technologies across Europe. According to its own information, the young company is now profitable in its core business and has more than 25,000 sensors that are used throughout Europe.
Over 200 partners support the network locally, including leading cooperatives, retailers and the food industry in France, Spain and Germany. Weenat uses its sensors to collect extensive data sets with spatial and calibrated weather and soil water data. In addition, the scale-up also offers solutions for the food and agricultural industries to promote climate-resilient practices.
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Fight against water scarcity in agriculture
“As a leading provider of weather data and water management, Weenat aims to spread its innovations across Europe and provide farmers with effective and user-friendly solutions. In 2023, our 10,000 soil sensors saved 32 million cubic meters of water. The potential impact of scaling our solutions across all fields in Europe is truly breathtaking,” explains Jérôme Le Roy, founder of the company.
According to Weenat, water scarcity and water management are one of the major ecological challenges for the coming decades due to the climate crisis. This situation has a profound impact on farmers, as agriculture accounts for 70 percent of the fresh water withdrawn worldwide. More than half of this water would be used inefficiently because there was a lack of suitable instruments.
Weenat aims to help farmers overcome the challenges of water scarcity. Understanding soil dynamics remains the biggest challenge for irrigators. That’s why the scale-up has launched a program to monitor soil water content in real time at the full depth of the root zone on all plots in Europe. This program uses data from Weenat’s extensive network of ground sensors, as well as satellite imagery and artificial intelligence.