Crop monitoring company PlanetWatchers has closed its pre-A series funding round, raising $3.5 million to support its growth plans.

PlanetWatchers will use the proceeds to significantly expand its commercial team and invest in ground-breaking technology to ensure it becomes the market leader in SAR based data analytics.

Seraphim Capital, the world's first venture fund dedicated to financing the growth of companies operating in the 'new space' ecosystem, and Creative Ventures, a deep tech venture fund, co-led the funding round. The Trendlines Agrifood Fund and Ridgeline Partners also invested in the oversubscribed $3.5 million round.

PlanetWatchers utilises advanced machine learning to support crop insurers in reporting planting dates, acreage, crop classification and claims validation at scale. The company uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to provide accurate insight without ever visiting the field, regardless of cloud cover, bad weather or poor lighting. The use of SAR, a powerful remote sensing technology bouncing microwave signals off the Earth’s surface, helps PlanetWatchers to detect physical properties and the changes to them over time, proving valuable insight to its customers. SAR can also provide create in-season insights that reduce overheads and increases customer satisfaction.

Dominic Edmunds, chief executive for PlanetWatchers, said: “Our vision and technology can turn months of manual adjustment into minutes of automated analysis. We are thrilled that Seraphim and Creative Ventures, as co-leads, have decided to join us on this journey as we aim to use the latest technology to transform the crop insurance market. We welcome the insight from all of our investors who bring with them extensive experience in the worlds of insurance, agriculture the public sector and space technology. Over the next year, PlanetWatchers aims to expand its services across America and into Europe.”

Mark Boggett, chief executive officer of Seraphim Capital, added: “Our investment reflects the potential we believe this breakthrough technology will have across the environmental sector. With the most advanced SAR technology, providing reliable, accurate and efficient analysis, on a global scale and at speed, PlanetWatchers will help transform, reshape and develop the industry as a whole.”