TerraBlaster, a California start-up that measures soil nutrients on the move with technology first used on the Mars rover, has raised a $12.5 million seed round as it prepares for commercial operations in 2027. The round takes its total funding to $16.5 million.

Ulu Ventures led the round, with Khosla Ventures, Trailhead Capital, Builders Vision, Bidra, Ag Startup Engine, Reservoir, Sunna, Plug and Play, GrainInnovate and the Hort Innovation Venture Fund managed by Artesian taking part. Cofounder and CEO Jorge Heraud previously cofounded Blue River Technology, the farm robotics company John Deere bought for $305 million; he was approached last year by Impossible Sensing to build a company around its laser technology for agriculture.

The sensor uses laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS): a high-energy laser pulse vaporises a speck of soil into plasma, and the light it emits as it cools reveals the elements present. Housed in a rugged probe dragged about six inches deep behind a tractor or ATV, it maps pH and levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients in real time. The first model, the Blaster 1,000, is a towed unit that opens a shallow trench and takes about twenty readings a second, producing maps at a resolution of 0.15 acres, an 80-by-80-foot square that matches the working width of spreading equipment already in use. It runs at 5 mph today; Heraud expects to reach 10 mph soon and eventually 20 mph with a narrower probe.

Conventional soil sampling, Heraud said, means collecting and mixing samples, bagging them and waiting days for a lab, and most farmers sample on 2.5-acre grids that hide the variation within a field. A zone that looks adequate in potassium at that resolution can contain patches that are low and patches that are too high, so fertiliser is over-applied in some places and under-applied in others. “With our technology, there’s no reason to suffer suboptimal yields by applying nutrients to a field based on low-resolution or old measurements,” he said.

The company says using the system should cost no more than farmers now pay for sampling. It estimates savings of $10 an acre in lab, sampling and shipping costs and yield gains worth $35 an acre in corn and soybeans, with gains of up to 20 per cent in the most deficient areas. Standard variable-rate spreaders can act on the finer maps. The device can also be mounted on a planter or tillage tool so that measuring happens during work the farmer is already doing; the eventual goal is to measure and apply fertiliser in a single pass, which would matter most for mobile nutrients such as nitrogen and sulphur that shift after rain.

After extensive testing in Iowa last year, TerraBlaster is running demonstrations with growers and retailers across the Midwest this autumn, and commitments for its first systems are already in place ahead of a pre-sale opening this autumn, with deliveries in spring 2027. The initial market is row-crop growers and the retailers and agronomists who serve them.

On the funding climate, Heraud said investor attention has gone to AI and agtech is “a challenging environment,” but noted Blue River raised its first money a year after the Great Recession. “A down cycle is sometimes where the biggest and best opportunities end up being funded,” he said.

Source: AgFunderNews