Special Report: Investors See Opportunity in Agriculture

Last February during the Agricultural Business Council’s 2021 Ag Innovation Forum, Kerryann Kocher, co-founder and CEO of Kansas City-based Vytelle, said there had been a “rapid explosion of companies” looking at agriculture as an opportunity to invest. She pointed to an inflow of “coastal money” descending on the farm belt and described coastal investors as “experienced and serious” about the ag business. 

Fast forward to September, and Vytelle – an innovator of in-vitro livestock fertilization technology – this week announced it has been on the receiving end of a round of Series A funding worth $13.2 million. According to the Kansas City Business Journal (September 29, 2021), investors included Open Prairie Rural Opportunity Fund, Ag-Tech VC and Fulcrum Global  The round was co-led by Open Prairie through the Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund, Ag-tech VC and Fulcrum Global Capital. Also participating in the round were local investors Innovation In Motion and KCRise Fund, as well as Serra Ventures and existing investor, UK-based Wheatsheaf Group. 

“It’s a really big milestone for us as a company,” Kocher told the Business Journal. “We’re really looking to expand and are excited about the validation and the commitment from our investors to do just that.”

Vytelle has a staff of 90 people working as lab technicians, veterinarians and specialists in data science, bioinformatics and quantitative genetics. The company hopes to add 20 more employees in finance and recruitment roles. In the last four years Vytelle has earned 20% of the IVF embryos market in the U.S. It also has customers in 21 countries. 

“The precision livestock company developed an integrated technology platform that uses breakthrough IVF technology as well as an animal performance data capture system and an artificial intelligence-based genetic analytics engine,” reported the Business Journal.  “Vytelle can help cattle producers accurately identify the elite performing animals with the best genetic traits to pass on, and it uses a non-hormone IVF approach, which eliminates the need for additional labor.”

Much of this round of Series A funding will be used to add 15 more labs where embryos for cattle farmers will be produced. The money also will be used to enhance the company’s AI analytics tools. In the next five years, its goal is to secure 25% of the embryo global market share.