Mitti Labs raises $9.5 million to scale AI rice farming platform
Mitti Labs raised $9.5 million on August 5, 2026, led by Aramco Ventures, to scale its AI rice farming platform for water-efficient Asian farms.
Photo by Huu Huynh on Pexels
Deep-tech company Mitti Labs announced a $9.5 million Series A funding round on August 5, 2026, led by Aramco Ventures, to expand its AI rice farming technology across Asia. The Bengaluru- and New York-based company said the capital will fund new operations across India and greenfield launches in the Philippines and Indonesia, scaling a satellite and artificial-intelligence platform that helps rice farmers cut water use and methane emissions.
Alongside Aramco Ventures, the round included Lightspeed India, Godrej Industries Group, Cisco Foundation, Francis Family Fund and Volta Circle. Mitti Labs was founded in 2023 and has grown to 150 employees, having raised $12.5 million in total funding to date, according to the company.
How the AI rice farming technology works
Mitti Labs’ core product is a GeoAI platform, developed with support from NASA, that fuses high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data with field-collected ground truth and physical models. The system generates digital, plot-level models of individual rice fields, most of which are fragmented plots of less than two hectares where reliable data on water use, practices and emissions has historically not existed. The platform produces field-level readings on crop health, soil moisture and flooding status, which the company uses to guide farmers toward Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), an irrigation method that intermittently drains and re-floods paddies instead of keeping them continuously submerged.
Water savings and rice’s climate footprint
Rice is the world’s most water-intensive crop, consuming more than 30% of all irrigation water globally, and continuously flooded paddies create anaerobic conditions that generate methane, a greenhouse gas linked to roughly a third of climate warming to date. Mitti Labs said its programs have saved 500 billion liters of water so far, an amount it compares to the annual water supply of Bengaluru, a city of more than 13 million people.
“Growing more rice with less water is one of the world’s major challenges. Demand for rice continues to grow, but record heat and changing rainfall patterns are threatening water systems and endangering food security,” said Mitti Labs co-founder Xavier Laguarta. The company said it aims to build resilient livelihoods for 150 million smallholder farmers across Asia.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| New Series A funding | $9.5 million |
| Total funding raised since 2023 | $12.5 million |
| Employees | 150 |
| Water saved to date | 500 billion liters |
| Water use reduction under AWD | ~40% |
| Methane emissions reduction under AWD | more than 50% |
| Rice’s share of global irrigation water use | more than 30% |
Zayed AlAmri, executive managing director at Aramco Ventures, said in the announcement that “rice covers a fifth of Asia’s cultivated land, and it is both a major source of methane and one of the most water-intensive crops grown,” adding that the harder challenge has been “knowing what is actually happening in the fields across millions of small farms.” Hemant Mohapatra, a partner at Lightspeed India, said Mitti Labs “can unlock new revenue opportunities” tied to the shift in rice-growing practices. The approach adds to a broader set of digital tools helping farmers adopt climate-smart agriculture practices that reduce input use while maintaining yields.
Mitti Labs’ current customers include Cool Effect, Ebro Foods and Syngenta. The company said it delivers what it describes as the largest AWD rice program operating globally.
Background
Mitti Labs launched in 2023 to address the data gap in smallholder rice farming, where most production occurs on small, fragmented plots that lack the sensor or monitoring infrastructure typical of large industrial farms. The company built its GeoAI platform with NASA’s support to translate raw satellite radar data into field-level irrigation guidance, and has since expanded from its home base in India to a global investor group including Aramco Ventures, Lightspeed India and Voyager Ventures. The August 5, 2026 Series A extends that model into the Philippines and Indonesia, two more of Asia’s largest rice-growing regions facing the same water and methane pressures that shaped the company’s initial India operations.
Sources: Mitti Labs (Cision/PR Newswire); citybiz
Featured image: photo by Huu Huynh on Pexels (free Pexels license).
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
