Ames-based agtech company Smart Ag announced today that it has been acquired by Sioux Falls-based Raven Industries.
The acquisition is part of Raven’s larger strategy to become an industry leader in autonomous agriculture solutions. Complementing the Company’s Applied Technology division, a leading technology provider in the precision agriculture industry, this acquisition will be integrated into the division’s business and technology portfolio with the intent to create autonomous solutions for the ag industry.
“The acquisition of Smart Ag is part of a bold, company-wide strategy for Raven,” commented Dan Rykhus, Raven Industries President and CEO, in the announcement. “It is a key investment in Raven Autonomy, one of our two strategic growth platforms. Autonomy in agriculture is the future of farming, and this acquisition, coupled with our existing precision agriculture solutions, solidifies our position as a technology leader within this market.”
Smart Ag was founded in 2015 by Colin Hurd to solve the growing labor crisis in production agriculture. Today, Smart Ag offers aftermarket retrofit kits to automate farm equipment as well as a platform to connect, manage and safely operate autonomous agricultural machinery.
“Raven’s experience in machine and application control is a perfect complement to the autonomous machine control developed by Smart Ag,” said Brian Meyer, Division Vice President of Raven Applied Technology. “Together, the expertise of both companies will allow for more operations to be performed in-field—with a significant increase in both performance and outputs. By automating existing machine platforms and implements, driverless machines have great potential to complement the work of manned machine operations in the field.”
Clay & Milk has reached out to Smart Ag for more information and will update this story when we hear back.
Previous coverage
Smart Ag receives $5 million investment from Stine Seed -June 14, 2018
Smart Ag: Driverless technology to work smarter, not harder -Feb. 27, 2018