Mineral to License Technology as Alphabet Slows Down Operations
July 8, 2024 
According to AgFunderNews, Alphabet plans to limit operations at Mineral, an ag-intelligence startup company. Established in January of 2023, Mineral’s mission is to “deliver foundational technologies to help other companies go faster.” The company plans to accomplish this by combining farmland rovers with agricultural data sourced by satellites, farm equipment and public databases.
In an interview with AgFunderNews, CEO Elliot Grant said Mineral developed machine-learning models to predict crop yields, increase production, target pests and make agriculture more eco-friendly. Grant still hopes to help growers reach these goals with Mineral’s partners, even if it’s no longer affiliated with Alphabet.
“Mineral will no longer be an Alphabet company,” Grant said. “Our technology will live on inside of leading agribusinesses where they can have maximum impact.”
When the company launched last year, its first partners were Driscoll’s, Syngenta Flowers and CGIAR. Although operations are slowing down within Alphabet, Mineral still plans to license tech to its partners.
“We worked with partners from day one,” Grant said. “We built robots that could inspect every plant in a field… We applied the most recent breakthroughs in AI and generative AI to help our partners tackle the urgent challenges of reducing food waste, improving forecasting and collecting higher quality data.”
Many of Mineral’s employees are determined to make agriculture more advanced by licensing technology to its company partners.
“A lot of people at Mineral are really passionate about leveraging technology to drive a more innovative agriculture ecosystem,” said Megan Fallon, Head of Marketing at Mineral. “So, we’re working on landing them [new positions], both within the Alphabet system and within agribusinesses.”