Koidra, a startup, and universities in the United States have received a $3.77 million USDA grant to develop AI technology for indoor farming.

• ByStartupStory     |    October 25, 2022

Koidra, based in Seattle, will collaborate on a $3.77 million research grant with Ohio State University, Rutgers University, Cornell University, and the University of Arizona. The US Department of Agriculture awarded Ohio State University a four-year grant, and Koidra will lead the project’s core. According to Koidra officials, the grant is unique in its academic-industry collaboration.

Earlier this year, Koidra raised a $4.5 million seed round. The new grant will enable the company to continue developing and validating data- and model-driven decision making to improve produce growth in collaboration with university experts. Venture capitalists are increasingly interested in agriculture technology. According to PitchBook research, agtech companies raised $10.9 billion in over 900 deals last year.

Kenneth Tran established the company in 2020. He is tackling the challenge of improving indoor farming with model-based reinforcement learning, a subdomain of machine learning. Reinforcement learning is primarily concerned with real-time decision making and optimization. “CEA technology development by domestic R&D capacity in the U.S. largely lags behind,” the researchers stated. “Historically, new technologies have been imported from the Netherlands, the world leader in CEA. This heavy dependence on overseas technologies in a rapidly expanding industry creates unbalanced accessibility and affordability.”

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