Valor is pleased to announce our third investment: MyAgData, a platform software startup serving the American agriculture industry based in Effingham, Illinois. Valor joins other notable strategic investors in MyAgData such as ADM, and will take a board seat at the growing firm, effective immediately, filled by Valor Ventures general partner Lisa Calhoun. MyAgData joins Valor’s growing portfolio of hypergrowth tech companies outside Silicon Valley.
Today’s timely Wall Street Journal article on the importance of investing in AgData tools underscores the thesis behind investing in agtech today. But not just any agtech–actual tools that build the agricultural ecosystem and save time and money. “Investors see promise in agricultural technology that goes beyond data,” the Wall Street Journal says. “Venture-capital investments in the agricultural sector overall rose to $560 million last year from $201 million in 2015, according to PitchBook—and that total excludes hardware like satellites that can be used in agriculture but also have other uses.”
MyAgData is just such a platform. By filing crop insurance with USDA more efficiently through their platform, the average farmer on the MyAgData platform saves $1350/yr in premium, and the average agricultural insurance provider saves $12 million a year.
That’s not even going into the huge savings (billions) the American taxpayer would get by not subsidizing acres that aren’t actually planted.
We look forward to seeing the continued growth of MyAgData as they continue to deliver results for the American farmer, the insurance agents that serve them, and the precision ag industry.