• WayBeyond is a digital agronomy solution combining crop sciences, data and AI to increase crop yield and quality
• BASF Venture Capital invests in innovative IoT SaaS startup serving the controlled-environment agriculture industry

San Francisco, California, and Mannheim, Germany – March 13, 2023 – BASF Venture Capital GmbH (BVC), the corporate venture capital company of BASF SE, is investing in WayBeyond. Founded in New Zealand and now headquartered in the United States, WayBeyond is an Internet of things (IoT) and software as a service (SaaS) company that aims to improve crop yields, crop quality and grower profitability for low-to-mid tech controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) operations using data capture, farm management, and prediction tools.

CEA refers to a variety of systems that take a technology-based approach to farming, which includes glasshouses, greenhouses, net houses and tunnels. CEA growing operations typically produce tomatoes, berries, cucumbers and peppers. Growth in CEA, specifically low-to-mid tech CEA, is expected to increase steadily as the global population increases and as sustainability goals drive concerns of food shortages, encouraging growers to reduce the environmental footprint of their operations. Major production markets include Mexico, Morocco and Spain, while CEA is also growing in other regions including Southeast Asia, both North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, and South America. Export markets include the United States and Europe.

WayBeyond is transforming the CEA industry with their data collection tools and AI-powered agronomy insights platform, FarmRoad. FarmRoad is an expert agronomist for every farm that gives growers farm- and crop-specific insights and recommendations to transform their growing decisions, improving yield, consistency and quality for more sustainable farming. WayBeyond also partners with seed producers to utilize the FarmRoad platform and FarmRoad’s crop-contextual AI for seed efficacy and quality transformation.

Markus Solibieda, Managing Director of BASF Venture Capital GmbH, said: “The use of controlled-environment agriculture to grow fruits and vegetables continues to expand globally. As the next generation of growers enters the agriculture industry, we believe that their entry point will be CEA. WayBeyond is positioned to transform the way these CEA farmers grow the crops that will feed our growing population.”

“WayBeyond’s solutions not only help growers visualize their growing operations, but also provide growers with the agronomic recommendations that they need to optimize yield and yield quality,” added Neal Okarter, Investment Manager at BVC in Los Angeles, California.

“We are delighted to have BVC as an investor. As a strategic VC fund, they are in a special position to appreciate WayBeyond as a disruptive business model. We are perfectly aligned around the vision of a digitally empowered, sustainable agricultural industry that will bring vast benefits to the seed and crop protection providers. Together, we are focused on supporting farm operators and growers,” saids Darryn Keiller, Founder and CEO of WayBeyond.

About BASF Venture Capital GmbH (BVC)

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. BASF Venture Capital GmbH also contributes to this corporate purpose. Founded in 2001, BASF Venture Capital invests in Europe, the United States, Canada, China, India, Brazil, and Israel. Our goal is to generate new growth potential for current and future business areas of BASF by investing in young companies and funds. The focus of our venture investments includes decarbonization, circular economy, agtech, new materials, digitization and new, disruptive business models. www.basf-vc.de.

About WayBeyond

Founded in New Zealand in 2016, WayBeyond creates technology for a better world. Its vision is to transform the agricultural industry so it can produce food sustainably for everyone on the planet.

WayBeyond’s expertise in data, artificial intelligence, and plant science is embodied in its future-focused farming solutions. FarmRoad – a farm management platform with powerful yield prediction and crop registration tools, and Folium – a climate monitoring system which harnesses readings from a network of wireless sensors to deliver detailed data across large growing areas. 

WayBeyond is a B2B business that advocates The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, while supporting the next generation of growers through community education programs. www.waybeyond.io.

Investcorp Technology Partners (“ITP”), a leading global technology investor, today announced that it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in NetRom Software (“NetRom” or “the Company”), a leading cloud-first, digital transformation and software engineering firm in the Benelux region. NetRom’s founders, management team and IceLake Capital, will continue to remain shareholders in the business alongside ITP. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Utrecht, the Netherlands, NetRom provides business-critical software engineering solutions, development support and adjacent services to a portfolio of diversified and blue-chip customers in Western Europe and North America, including for example VodafoneZiggo, Transdev and LeasePlan.

NetRom’s long-term commitments to its customers and employees are key elements of its success, resulting in a strong track record of profitable growth, having more than doubled its revenues in the last five years.

ITP’s investment is expected to accelerate the Company’s ambitious growth plans. The Company currently has approximately 500 highly-qualified engineers across 4 offices in the Netherlands and Romania. ITP expects to continue to invest in strengthening its delivery platform, as well as further expanding existing and new service areas, industry verticals and geographies.

ITP has established a market-leading position of investing in lower mid-market technology companies with a specific focus on Software, Data / Analytics, Cyber Security, and Fintech. The investment in NetRom represents the third investment from ITP’s global fund, Investcorp Technology Partners V following its investments in HWG (Cybersecurity) and Zift Solutions (Software).

Georg Knoflach, Managing Director at ITP, stated, “Investcorp Technology Partners is pleased to be partnering with NetRom, a high-growth company offering mission critical products and services to the European software market. We have been impressed not only by the growth trajectory of the Company over the last decade, but also by the founders’ and management team’s incredible commitment to their customers, employees, and state-of-the-art facilities. We are looking forward to working with NetRom’s co-founders and the rest of the NetRom team on their next stage of critical growth.”

Bastiaan Hagenouw, partner at IceLake added: “After closely working with the NetRom management team for the past three-and-a-half years and achieving many milestones, IceLake is excited to continue the growth story together. With great trust in the management team and Investcorp, IceLake is proud and thrilled to continue the journey with NetRom to realise their ambitious goals.”

Han In’t Veld founder and CEO of NetRom, added: “For NetRom it’s a big accomplishment to be able to team up with the professionals at ITP. We see this as a logical and essential step in our journey towards becoming a significant player in the outsourced software product development space. The team at ITP have extensive experience and a long track record of supporting growth in businesses like ours. Together with ITP we will have the means to service our customers better, to increase market share and to conquer new geographical target areas.”

Mircea Negrila co-founder and CTO of NetRom added: “We are excited to be able to team-up with ITP which will allow us to move full speed ahead with the development of the NetRom campus and the NetRom educational programs. Creating state-of-the-art and inspiring, innovative working conditions is a key component of our talent acquisition strategy and our student academy programs have proven to be of critical value for the development of our organization. With the highly complementary skillset and experience that ITP put on the table, we created ideal conditions for further growth.”

Investcorp Technology Partners was advised by PhiDelphi Corporate Finance (M&A advisory), McDermott Will & Emery & Orange Clover (Legal), PwC (Commercial), KPMG (Financial & Tax), Willkie Farr & Gallagher (Legal – Financing), and Marlborough Partners (Debt Advisory). NetRom and IceLake Capital were advised by Houlihan Lokey (M&A Advisory), Allen & Overy (Legal), BCG (Commercial) and Deloitte (Financial & Tax).

On-demand shuttle service and transit tech company Via has raised another $110 million, bringing the company’s total funding to around $1 billion. The fresh capital pushes Via’s valuation up to $3.5 billion at the same price per share as the company’s previous financing in November of 2021.

Via intends to use the funds to further its vision of being “able to provide every city in the world access to this end-to-end digital infrastructure, where they can plan, operate, analyze and continue to optimize their transit networks across every vertical in that transit network,” Daniel Ramot, Via’s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch.

Via’s transit tech software helps public transportation agencies, municipalities and school districts optimize fixed bus routes, strategize placements of new bike lanes, plan paratransit and school bus services, and holistically incorporate private on-demand ridesharing services into a city’s entire transportation ecosystem. The company has already scaled to 600 communities and more than 35 countries.

As new mobility segments continue to emerge, threatening to cramp already congested streets and decimate already tight budgets, Ramot thinks the startup can do more.

Either through in-house development or mergers and acquisitions, Via wants to use the funds to add more products to its suite of tools. The company is still considering its options, but a few ideas Ramot and I tossed around the idea of expanding Via’s street map making software to include planning for traffic lights and speed bumps; adding parking and curb management software; managing fleets of electric vehicles and their many chargers; integrating micromobility planning; and incorporating autonomous vehicles into the mix.

Via is currently working with AV companies Motional and May Mobility to deploy autonomous ridesharing shuttles in Las Vegas, Nevada and Grand Rapids, Minnesota, respectively.

“The idea would be that you’d use our tools to plan the infrastructure in the most effective, safest, most efficient way, and then design the transit network that sits on top of that infrastructure,” Ramot told TechCrunch. “Potentially we’d be interested in control access, also. Right of way through traffic lights, for example — if you have a bus show up at a traffic light with 50 people on it, and then a car with one person, the traffic light’s not smart enough to give the bus right of way, but you would probably want it to do that. And those are just supply/demand-matching algorithms, which our system is very good at doing.”

Via’s fundraise comes at a time when startups are thirsty for fresh cash and investors are being picky. Ramot says Via is, in some ways, at the right place at the right time — transit agencies are still reeling from the effects of COVID-19 on ridership patterns, and they’re more amenable to being ushered into the 21st century with digital tools and datasets.

“In the past, it’s been very difficult to convince cities and transit agencies to adopt new technology, to transition to more dynamically routed or data-driven services,” said Ramot. “I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s become easier.”

Via has also been able to show investors that it’s got a sustainable business. The company said it ended 2022 with an annualized revenue run-rate surpassing $200 million, which is more than double since its previous $130 million financing round in November 2021.

That’s around the time Via confidentially filed to go public. The company has yet to move forward on that given the market volatility of the past year, but Ramot said Via is very much prepared to make its debut once the market opens up and if it makes sense to do so. While Via didn’t need to raise more funds to continue operating at its current clip, the funds also give the startup the “optionality” to go public when the timing is right, says Ramot.

The $110 million came from a combination of new and existing investors. 83North led the round, with participation from Exor N.V., Pitango, Janus Henderson, CF Private Equity, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures, Riverpark Ventures and ION Crossover Partners.