Aramco Ventures, the venture arm of Saudi Aramco, led a $9.5 million Series A round in Mitti Labs on August 5. The Bengaluru- and New York-based startup uses satellite imagery and AI to help rice farmers cut water use and methane emissions.
Key Facts
- Aramco Ventures led the $9.5 million round, marking its first investment in an Indian startup.
- Up from 8,000 in 2024, Mitti Labs now works with over 100,000 rice farms.
- The fresh capital funds expansion into the Philippines this year and Indonesia in 2027.
The round is Aramco Ventures' first investment in an Indian startup, according to Mitti Labs and independently confirmed by TechCrunch. Other participants included:
- Lightspeed India, an existing backer
- Godrej Industries Group
- Cisco Foundation
- Francis Family Fund
- Volta Circle
Zayed AlAmri, executive managing director at Aramco Ventures, described rice as covering about a fifth of Asia's cultivated land. He called it a major source of both methane emissions and water stress.
How Mitti Labs' GeoAI Platform Works
Mitti Labs' core product is what it calls a GeoAI platform, which fuses synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery with AI models trained on years of field data. The imagery ranges from 50 centimeters to 10 meters in resolution.
The field data comes from the company's own teams, co-founder Xavier Laguarta told TechCrunch.
The system builds a digital twin of each rice plot, tracking crop conditions, water use, and methane output across smallholder farms that average about one hectare. This tracking lets the company monitor whether farmers have switched from continuous flooding to Alternate Wetting and Drying.
The company says the practice cuts water use by close to 40% and methane emissions by more than 50%, without hurting yields.
Mitti Labs generates revenue two ways: selling carbon credits tied to the emissions cuts, and selling data through its GeoAI platform. Proprietary data is the edge, not the raw satellite feed, Laguarta told TechCrunch. Customers span carbon marketplace Cool Effect, rice producer Ebro Foods, and agricultural company Syngenta.
Mitti Labs' Growth From 8,000 to 100,000 Farms
Mitti Labs has grown quickly since launching in 2023. The company worked with about 8,000 farmers in its first season in 2024. This season, that number has passed 100,000 across several Indian states, per Laguarta's interview with TechCrunch. The company now employs more than 150 people, most of them based in India.
That growth and Mitti Labs' existing customer base helped draw Aramco Ventures' attention, Laguarta explained to TechCrunch. He added that having Aramco as a partner, and a potential future customer, puts the startup in an interesting position. No direct commercial relationship between Mitti Labs and Aramco itself has been announced, however.
Mitti Labs says its programs have saved 500 billion liters of water to date, roughly equal to Bengaluru's annual water supply.
Mitti Labs' Expansion Plans for the Philippines and Indonesia
With the new funding, Mitti Labs plans to launch operations in the Philippines later this year. Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets follow in 2027, Laguarta told TechCrunch. The expansion would let the company sell into compliance carbon markets alongside the voluntary market it currently serves, he added.
Per Mitti Labs' announcement, Lightspeed India partner Hemant Mohapatra credited the company's technology and farmer network with the potential to "unlock new revenue opportunities" for smallholders.
The Philippines and Indonesia are both major rice-producing markets. Mitti Labs noted the expansion will require adapting its model to different regulatory environments and irrigation systems than those it has worked with in India.
Asked about the company's broader ambitions, Laguarta pointed to its self-image as a data company rather than just a farming platform.
"We're really a data company at the end of the day," he told TechCrunch. Each new market, he added, brings data from a different farming ecosystem the company will need to fold into its models.
