Saudi Aramco backs India’s Mitti Labs to make Asia’s rice farming more water-resilient

Saudi Aramco Ventures, the venture arm of Saudi Aramco, has invested $9.5 million in Mitti Labs, a climate-tech startup aiming to enhance water resilience in Asia's rice farming. This investment, led by Aramco Ventures, is part of a Series A round that saw participation from Lightspeed India, Godrej Industries Group, Cisco, Francis Family Fund, and Volta Circle.

Mitti Labs, headquartered in New York and Bengaluru, leverages satellite imagery, AI, and field operations to help farmers reduce water usage and methane emissions, key challenges in rice cultivation which accounts for a significant portion of agricultural methane emissions. Since its inception in 2023, Mitti Labs has raised a total of $12.5 million, including a $3 million seed round in July 2024.

The startup's GeoAI platform, which combines synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from satellites with field data, creates digital twins of rice fields, enabling remote monitoring of crop conditions, water use, and methane emissions. With just over 150 employees, most of whom are based in India, Mitti Labs is targeting millions of smallholder farmers across India and beyond by 2030.

The technology has already helped participating farmers reduce water use by about 40% and methane emissions by more than 50% without compromising yields, generating carbon credits as a secondary income stream. Revenue streams for Mitti Labs come from both carbon credits and its GeoAI platform, which has already attracted customers ranging from carbon marketplaces like Cool Effect to agricultural companies like Ebro Foods and Syngenta.

This recent investment from Aramco Ventures, the first in an Indian startup, signifies recognition of Mitti Labs' innovative approach to tackling climate challenges in agriculture.