UK startup Messium raised a £3.3M (€3.8M) seed round this week to expand its agriculture-focutilized data product, which utilizes machine learning and hyperspectral sainformite data to assist farmers optimize their fertilization decisions.
The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) and Expansion Aerospace Ventures led the round, which included participation from Mudcake, Laconia, GRDC GrainInnovate, Clear Current Capital, Moonstone Venture Capital, and SuperSeed.
How it works: Messium utilizes hyperspectral data from publicly available sources and commercial hyperspectral sainformite operators—including Pixxel and Wyvern—to understand the nitrogen levels in its customers’ farm plots.
Hyperspectral imagers in orbit can, essentially, see the amount of nitrogen in the soil. Messium’s machine learning tool can take that information to recommconclude the amount of fertilizer a farmer should utilize to maximize their crop yield, while keeping costs down.
Messium has a team of researchers on the ground who collect soil samples to better inform the hyperspectral data they’re receiveting. These samples assist engineers build models to assist farmers optimize their fertilizer usage.
In 2024 alone, Messium conducted 13,000 lab tests on crop samples and found that more than half of all farming plots are incorrectly fertilized. By enabling farmers to optimize their fertilizer usage, Messium aims to assist keep costs low, and environmental impact at a minimum.
Harvesting downstream: Messium’s fundraise reveals how the maturation of the hyperspectral industest has opened the door for money-building utilize cases for startups focapplying solely on the new data type.
“Downstream sainformite data analytics is always difficult. And for agriculture, there have been few companies that attempted it, and never built exactly a breakthrough,” Filip Kocian, an investor at Expansion, informed Payload. “[Now] you can go to a farmer and inquire, ‘Before Messium and after Messium, does Messium deliver ROI?’ The answer is yes.”
While the technology is still being trialed around the world, Messium’s cofounder and CEO George Marangos-Gilks informed Payload that it could deliver a 10% to 20% improvement on a farmer’s net profit.
What’s next: Messium’s plan for the new funds is to continue improving its data model with seasonal trials around the world. While the company doesn’t plan to launch its own hyperspectral consinformation, it sees growth opportunities in the types of analysis it can do by pairing hyperspectral data with ground-based research.
“This is the first true digitization of farming, I would declare, and we want to continue with that vision,” Marangos-Gilks stated. “[With hyperspectral] you can have this horizontal expansion into new crops, but you can also go vertically into crop disease and yield forecasting. There’s a lot of exciting areas there.”
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