New funding: CODA Farm Technologies, an internet of things (IoT) agriculture startup with literal roots in Western Washington’s Skagit Valley, has raised $2.2 million in venture capital. The seed round was led by Lower Carbon Capital with participation from Voyager Capital, Arnold Venture Group and Will Canine, co-founder of Opentrons Labworks.
Backstory: CEO David Wallace grew up on his family’s potato farm, but left for college and graduate school, ultimately landing a job as a senior data scientist with Amazon Web Services for four years. His brother, Chief Technology Officer Connor Wallace, likewise abandoned the spuds for college and employment in science and technology.
The two eventually made their way back to their namesake Wallace Farms, applying their tech expertise to agriculture and launching CODA Farm Technologies in 2020.
The tech: Smaller farm tracts irrigate their land using the “traveling sprinkler” method — essentially a sprinkler on wheels is slowly pulled across a field at a steady rate. But the system can malfunction and stall, flooding a field, and it needs to be manually turned off. The Wallace brothers created a platform and hardware that controls the flow and shares…
