📝 Picketa raises $2.1M

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Fredericton-based agricultural technology startup Picketa has secured $2.1 million in seed funding from Tall Grass Ventures to scale production of its real-time crop health analysis hardware and expand its market footprint across Western Canada and the Midwestern United States. The investment round—which included participation from the BDC Seed Fund, Verdex Capital, Skull Diamond and Heart Capital, and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF)—brings Picketa’s total cumulative funding to $4.6 million. Founded by CEO Xavier Hébert-Couturier, the company’s flagship Leaf Evaluated Nutrient System (LENS) device allows agronomists and agricultural retailers to perform instantaneous, on-the-spot plant tissue analysis, completely bypassing traditional third-party laboratories that frequently require weeks to return data. Amid an acute macro crisis in which the U.S.-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sent global fertilizer prices skyrocketing, the LENS platform leverages a global database of multi-stage crop conditions to optimize fertilizer efficiency, resulting in up to a 20 percent reduction in seasonal input expenditures. Having successfully scaled its diagnostic capabilities from potatoes to primary North American cash crops like corn, canola, soybeans, and wheat, Picketa intends to utilize the fresh capital to boost device manufacturing into the hundreds per year, grow its sales and support staff, and expand its software model to encompass 20 additional crop varieties to meet surging international demand.

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