The deal is aimed at helping Hone scale its spectrometry-based solution for soil carbon measurement and follows the startup’s Series A round late last year, which AFN can reveal raised A$6.5 million in funding.
Hone is developing a range of different services for the agrifood industries based around handheld spectrometer technology and artificial intelligence.
Traditional soil testing requires farmers, agronomists, or landholders to take samples from the field and send them off to a lab.
Despite their onerous nature, conventional lab tests are often viewed as being more rigorous and in-depth than alternative soil carbon measurement methods.
“The results produced by the Hone instrument are in an identical format to that produced by a conventional analytical laboratory.
Hone Carbon serves around 10 customers at the moment, including Australia’s national R&D agency CSIRO, local startup Loam Bio, ag carbon project AgriProve, and French farmer co-op Limagrain.