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THE
BEE’S KNEES
OF
PRECISION AGRICULTURE
Ubees lands $8M to accelerate precision beekeeping
and pollination services
RYAN RIDLEY
FARMS.COM
05
WATCH THE VIDEO
Investments continue to drive technological
advancements across all aspects of agriculture and
the bees are starting to hop on the bandwagon.
Ubees, a provider of precision
beekeeping and pollination
services, recently landed
$8 million in growth capital,
led by WindSail Capital Group.
It’s no secret that bees are essential in pollinating
fruits, vegetables, and nuts – it’s said that 1 out of every
3 bites of food we eat are pollinated by bees – what
may surprise you though is the advancements in
beekeeping from a precision ag perspective.
“We are incredibly excited to be working with the
Ubees team. More than one-third of the world’s
food crops are dependent on pollination while bee
populations have declined over the years,” explains
Matthew O’Rourke, Principal at WindSail Capital Group.
“Meanwhile, demand for pollination dependent crops
such as almonds have increased to historic levels.
Ubees is well positioned to deploy its pollination
expertise and innovative technology to improve
efficiencies for the world’s food supply chains.”
The company uses sensors that provide non-intrusive
precision monitoring of colony strength, population
evolution, and hive activity – everything a beekeeper
needs to remotely monitor hive health and make data
driven decisions.
Like many precision ag practices, monitoring is key
for success and precision beekeeping is no different.
Ubee’s technology monitors and quantifies parasites,
pathogens, pesticides exposure, as well as nutritional
assessments of a bees diet.
The end goal is to ‘reduce bee mortality rates and
help to sustain pollination at the industrial scale’ says
Ubees’ website.
“We found the perfect alignment between WindSail
and Ubees in our mission to expand pollination
services in the U.S. and abroad, which are essential to
our food production,” said Arnaud Lacourt, Ubees’
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. “We
immediately understood each other, and I knew right
away that WindSail was the right partner to collaborate
with in the most sustainable way.”
Ubees has big plans for this funding
round:
•
Accelerate the deployment of its digital
marketplace
•
Grow its pollination services business
•
Deploy its IoT sensor technology to monitor bee
health and efficiency
•
Develop algorithms to sharpen pollination
monitoring and agricultural data
•
Expand to new crops and geographies
The company currently
operates 10,000 hives
across the United States
managing more than 50
customers. They also
have a research and
development center in
Europe and recently started a
new project in South America.
PHOTO: Ale-ks/iStock/Getty Images Plus
