CERES
Founders: Ash Madgavkar
Headquarters: Oakland, CA
Year Founded: 2014
Year Romulus Invested: 2017
Ceres is an aerial spectral imaging and analytics company that helps growers optimize their water and fertilization applications. The company provides data-as-a-service to growers in the agricultural sector: capturing, processing, and analyzing high-resolution multi-spectral images that identify problem areas in a field. Ceres’ highly accurate, real-time information gives growers a deeper understanding of the water and nutrient status of each plant in their fields, enabling them to make in-season changes that improve their profits.
The Ceres-Romulus story:
When we found Ceres, we had been looking at the agricultural technology space for 2-3 years. Agriculture is a massive, traditional industry in which technology startups have (for the most part) not yet found a way to create meaningful, scalable value—and that opportunity intrigued us. “When I came across Ceres, I felt they had a very different approach,” says Krishna. “They actually cared about the farmers, about the value they were creating. The ROI for customers was Ceres’ focus, unlike many of their competitors in the space.” The company’s deep technology expertise, its roster of experts including several PhDs, and its global ambition compelled Krishna to partner with Ash to help the business grow.
Romulus value in action: Global. Ceres’ university-validated technology has the potential to improve an entire global industry. The company started by offering solutions for a few specific crops, but it has always had a more expansive vision that would allow its technology to influence myriad crop types and geographies.