Best Crop Tech Companies in New Zealand
The 103 best Crop Tech companies in New Zealand in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: BioLumic.
Ranking the best Crop Tech companies in New Zealand by disclosed equity funding and recent momentum, this directory tracks 103 ventures with a combined $59M raised — and the spread tells you everything. BioLumic leads by a wide margin at $26M, with Robotics Plus at $10M and PastoralGenomics at $7M rounding out the serious capital tier. Hectre, WayBeyond, and Croplogic each sit at $3-5M, which sounds modest until you remember the global crop tech market was $2.2B in 2020 and is forecast to hit $4.4B by 2025 at a 15.2% CAGR. That's a rising tide, and New Zealand founders are paddling hard into it.
So what's actually moving the needle here? IoT-driven field monitoring, remote sensing, and food security pressures are pulling investment toward precision agriculture at a rate that makes $59M in a small market feel less like a ceiling and more like a baseline. Investors like Callaghan Innovation, Icehouse Ventures, and New Zealand Growth Capital Partners keep showing up across rounds, which I'd read as a signal that the local funding infrastructure is maturing, not just recycling. Stringent government regulations around agricultural inputs are pushing companies toward data-driven compliance tools, and if you're watching this sector, that regulatory friction is as much tailwind as headwind for the right software play.
Our analysis of 100 Crop Tech companies
$8.2b in tracked funding; 87% of the stack-profiled cohort runs cloud-native; funding activity peaked in 2025.
Ranked: Best Crop Tech companies in New Zealand
| # | Company | Disclosed funding | Last round | Stage | Founder | Founded | Tech stack | Patents & IP focus | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BioLumic Programming plant growth, vigour, and yields with UV light technology | $26M | 27 mo ago | Series B | — | 2012 | Squarespace CommerceSquarespaceTypeScript+15 | 66 patents Seed treatment technologies and genetically enhanced crops to boost yield, hardiness, and nutrition | — |
| 2 | Robotics Plus Robotics Plus: Adapting technology for a sustainable and successful agriculture sector | $10M | 91 mo ago | Acquired | Steven Saunders Co-Founder & CEO | 2013 | PHPVue.jsMicrosoft 365+7 | 30 patents Automated load scanning and robotic packing for material handling systems. | — |
| 3 | PastoralGenomics Online retailer of premium domain names with multiple payment options | $7M | 132 mo ago | Funding Raised | Mike Dunbier Chairman & CEO | 2002 | — | — | — |
| 4 | Hectre Provider of orchard management solutions using sensor-based devices | $5M | 32 mo ago | Seed | Matty Blomfield Co-Founder | 2015 | WordPressMySQLPHP+20 | — | 3 awards |
| 5 | WayBeyond Provider of crop management software and climate monitoring systems to farmers | $3M | 40 mo ago | Series A | Darryn Keiller Founder & CEO | 2021 | HubSpot CMS HubAmazon Web ServicesPreact+20 | 9 patents Air quality and environmental monitoring sensors for detecting gases and pollutants | 3 launchs |
| 6 | Croplogic Precision agriculture technology provider | $3M | 85 mo ago | Public | — | 2010 | — | — | — |
| 7 | RipeTime Analytics technology for ripeness detection in fruits and vegetables | $2M | 116 mo ago | Deadpooled | John Shannon CEO | 2015 | — | 4 patents Gas sensing and measurement devices for detecting specific gas concentrations | — |
| 8 | Veritide Developer of technology for real-time detection of foodborne microorganisms | $2M | 151 mo ago | Series B | Gerard Kilpatrick | 2005 | — | 27 patents Optical biosensor systems for real‑time detection of contaminants and microorganisms | — |
| 9 | AgriTrack Online farm management software for agriculture industry | $394K | 119 mo ago | Deadpooled | — | 2013 | — | — | — |
| 10 | Biotelliga Provider of sustainable waste and water treatment technologies | $103K | 156 mo ago | Funding Raised | Damien Fleetwood CEO | 2004 | — | 50 patents Patents concentrated in health & consumer products | — |
Top 12 Crop Tech companies in New Zealand
#1
Series B · Palmerston North, Manawatu Wanganui · founded 2012 · 34 employees$26.4Mraised▾
Programming plant growth, vigour, and yields with UV light technology. The company delivers ultraviolet light to seeds and seedlings, triggering biological mechanisms that enhance plant characteristics. This world-first technology is clean, green, and GM-free, offering a sustainable approach to agriculture. The company focuses on photobiology, engineering, and data science to maximize the power of UV light for crop enhancement. They aim to increase yields sustainably, working with plant scientists, agronomists, and engineers to develop innovative solutions for row crops, dairy, and forage applications. The company's technology represents a breakthrough in agricultural science, offering a novel method for improving plant traits and promoting sustainable farming practices. This is a B2B, AgTech company with a social impact.
- Mar 2024Series B$3M
- Jun 2022Series B$13.5M
- Dec 2021Conventional Debt$1.2M
- May 2019Series A$1.5M
#2
Seed · Auckland, Auckland · founded 2015 · 46 employees$5.4Mraised▾
Provider of orchard management solutions using sensor-based devices. The software platform allows digital record-keeping for daily operations as well as inventory management. The data for pests, diseases, hazards, and diseases. The software also has a digital bin card system for working offline. The platform provides a graphical and tabular representation of historical data for performance benchmarking purposes.
- Oct 2023Seed$3M
- Oct 2021Seed$2.4M
#3
Series A · Auckland, Auckland · founded 2021 · 32 employees$3.2Mraised▾
Provider of crop management software and climate monitoring systems to farmers. Its solutions include collecting data, managing crops with data, and managing growing practices with data. It also offers solutions for agriculture planning software, crop tracker, and farm management tool.
- Jan 2023Series A$3.2M
#4
Acquired · Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty · founded 2013 · 90 employees$10Mraised▾
Robotics Plus: Adapting technology for a sustainable and successful agriculture sector. They design and build robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous machines for the agriculture sector. Their products include unmanned ground vehicles, fruit packers, and log scalers, all designed to improve efficiency, accuracy, and safety in agricultural processes. They focus on creating solutions that adapt to diverse and ever-changing agricultural environments, enabling growers to thrive. They offer multiple products and services, focusing on innovation through understanding the realities of farming. They are committed to creating a more sustainable and successful agriculture sector.
- Nov 2018Series A$8M
- Mar 2018Seed$2M
#5
Public · Christchurch, Canterbury · founded 2010 · 11 employees$2.8Mraised▾
Precision agriculture technology provider. It is an agricultural technology company that develops precision farming tools combining in‑field sensors, climate and satellite data with analytics to help growers improve crop yields, irrigation and field decisions. Its data‑driven agronomy solutions serve large‑scale crop producers.
- Apr 2019Conventional Debt$710.8K
- May 2017Series A$2M
- Jul 2016Seed$512K
- Sep 2015Seed$314.4K
#6
Funding Raised · Wellington, Wellington · founded 2002$7Mraised▾
Online retailer of premium domain names with multiple payment options. It provides domain name registration services. It offers a selection of domain names for purchase. The company facilitates domain transfers to registrars. It provides customer support and domain management tools.
- 2015Grant (prize money)$7M
- Grant (prize money)—
#7
Deadpooled · Auckland, Auckland · founded 2015$2Mraised▾
RipeTime is a company developed an analytics technology to detect the ripeness of fruits and vegetables to reduce wastage across the value chain. The company uses sensors to detect different gases present in the stored fruits sample to predict the ripeness. It has conducted successful trials for Kiwi fruits and others.
- Oct 2016Seed$2M
#8
Series B · Christchurch, Canterbury · founded 2005$1.5Mraised▾
Developer of technology for real-time detection of foodborne microorganisms. The company provides solutions for detecting visible and invisible faecal contamination in meat and poultry processing. It offers a portable fecal detector for meat processors, providing a lightweight handheld scanner.
- Oct 2013Series B$1.5M
#9
Deadpooled · Dunedin, Otago · founded 2013 · 3 employees$393.9Kraised▾
Agritrack provides an online farm management software especially for fleet management with some other value adds for the agriculture industry of Austalia and New Zealand. The software is accessible on Android and IOS devices. It has modules for farm mapping using satellite imagery and zonal classification of different paddocks. Information can be tagged for a specific paddock. The vehicular fleet can be integrated into the platform through which data can be automatically uploaded to the software. Tasks can be Geotagged and can be tracked by the software platform. Furthermore, the company has partnered with "WeatherZone" to provide hyper-local weather information on the software. The platform also provides notifications for speed limit overlap by any machine of the fleet.
- Jul 2016Angel$393.9K
#10
Funding Raised · Auckland, Auckland · founded 2004 · 3 employees$103Kraised▾
Provider of sustainable waste and water treatment technologies. It offers solutions for wastewater management, including the remediation of sewage lagoons and the implementation of treatment plants. The company also provides water supply management systems using technologies like reverse osmosis and filtration. In solid waste management, it offers clean waste destruction and management technologies, such as gasification, to eliminate pollution from landfills. Additionally, it deploys pellet plants to convert forestry and agricultural waste into renewable fuel, and biodigestor technologies to convert organic waste into soil amendment. Anaerobic digestion solutions are also offered to convert organic waste into biogas for electricity generation.
- 2013Grant (prize money)$103K
- 2010Grant (prize money)—
#11
Funding Raised · Palmerston North, Manawatu Wanganui · founded 2003$65.2Kraised▾
Developer of plant and microbial technologies for sustainable agriculture solutions. It invests in research and development of biological solutions for agricultural challenges. The company collaborates with industry partners to develop solutions for farmers. It focuses on seed production, plant cultivars, and microbial endophytes.
- Grant (prize money)$7.7K
- Grant (prize money)$57.5K
#12
Funding Raised · Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty · founded 1989 · 35 employees—raised▾
Developer of a software suite intended to improve quality and productivity of fresh produce growers, producers and distributors. The company's services include software programs for growing, packing and selling that tracks bins and trucks, create and manage orders, centralize business data and more, enabling its clients to have control and visibility across the supply chain, from soil to supermarket.
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Crop Tech coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
Common questions
Rohit lives in the feed. He covers what's moving right now — the funding rounds, launches and shifts breaking across the trade press — and ties them back to where the sector is heading.