AgZen Secures $10 Million Series B to Fuel Rapid Growth After Accelerated Adoption by Growers & Industry Partners

SOMERVILLE, Mass., March 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AgZen, the MIT spinout bringing droplet-level control to agricultural spraying, today announced it has raised $10 million in Series B funding following a year of accelerated adoption that exceeded internal projections. In a single season, acreage deployed with its flagship RealCoverage® system expanded 15x, reaching nearly one million commercial acres in the U.S. For 2026, the company has already signed commitments covering more than 2 million acres across three continents.

The round was led by returning investor DCVC Bio and included participation from Material Impact and a new impact investor, Astanor Ventures. The company is also announcing a partnership with Syngenta AG alongside a strategic investment from Syngenta Group Ventures.

“Quantifiable ROI drove our investment,” said Justin Kern, Partner at DCVC Bio. “When growers can see exactly where every drop lands, behavior changes immediately. At scale, that knowledge begins to reshape how crop protection products work, how equipment is designed, and how performance is measured across the industry.”

“Farmers adopt technology when it is easy to use, reduces cost, and improves yield,” said Peter Eckes, Operational Partner at Astanor. “That’s exactly what we see with AgZen. The team has built a solution that helps growers get more value from every application while reducing unnecessary input use. For us as an impact investor, this is a practical example of innovation that aligns farmer economics with environmental responsibility, a clear win-win.”

AgZen’s RealCoverage® measures how much spray reaches leaf surfaces as sprayers move through the field at operating speeds up to 18 miles per hour. The system can detect droplets as small as 150 microns, capturing data every few inches and delivering actionable recommendations to get more product on target and improve efficiency. For decades, application performance has been assumed. AgZen quantifies it and improves it in real time.

Results have been immediate. Growers report cleaner fields, higher yields, and average chemical savings of up to 50 percent, with payback typically in under a year.

“We expected growth,” said Vishnu Jayaprakash, CEO of AgZen. “We did not expect acreage to expand 15x in a single season. Growers adopted the system faster than anticipated. What’s been even more exciting is the buy-in from the broader industry, including crop protection companies and OEMs. We chose to accelerate our roadmap and scale to meet that momentum.”

As acreage scaled, interest has expanded beyond the farm. Major crop protection companies are now partnering with AgZen to better understand how products perform under commercial conditions. OEMs and retailers are also coming on board to close the loop between application and outcome.

“Combining our expertise on interfacial physics, computer vision, and physical AI with Syngenta’s expertise in crop protection and application, AgZen will unlock unprecedented efficiencies for the entire industry,” said Kripa Varanasi, Chairman of AgZen and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

AgZen will use the capital primarily to accelerate product development after selling out its 2026 production allocation. The company plans to more than double the number of units in the field next year while strengthening dealer-supported deployments across three continents. As more systems operate across crops, geographies, and spray programs, the resulting knowledge and data becomes increasingly valuable.

“Material Impact has been with AgZen since its earliest days because the team set out to solve one of the most persistent gaps in crop protection: the lack of visibility into what actually reaches the plant,” said Paul Deninger, Operating Partner at Material Impact. “Seeing droplets on the leaf changes the conversation from speculation to quantification. That clarity, and the way industry leaders act on it, is fundamental to building a business with real economic and environmental impact.”

As coverage intelligence expands beyond 2 million acres in 2026, AgZen is positioning application efficiency as measurable infrastructure. With droplet-level knowledge and coverage recommendations now available at full operating speeds, application is no longer a black box. It becomes a performance layer capable of influencing chemistry development, equipment design, regulations and how value moves through the crop protection supply chain.

About AgZen:

AgZen is pioneering feedback-optimized agriculture, a new approach that brings measurable performance to crop protection. By turning spray application into real-time intelligence, AgZen improves outcomes and reduces costs across the direct agricultural inputs industry.

About DCVC:

DCVC is deep tech venture capital. Over more than a dozen years, the firm has backed brilliant entrepreneurs using computational approaches to solve trillion-dollar problems in the real world across a broad set of industries, especially those that haven’t seen material progress in decades. With billions of dollars of assets under management, DCVC builds long-term relationships with the founders it backs. The firm has been with many of its companies from their very start - and through to their recognition by the public markets as category-defining businesses. For more information, please visit www.dcvc.com, or follow us on LinkedIn @DCVC.

About Astanor:

Astanor is a global impact investment firm focused on seed through growth stage businesses across the entire agriculture and food value chain. Founded in 2017, Astanor counts circa 50 investments to date in Europe, North America and beyond. Astanor’s mission is to invest in and support visionary entrepreneurs and management teams building scalable solutions for the transition to regenerative agriculture, sustainable food production, and resilient supply chains. More information is available at Astanor.

About Syngenta:

Syngenta is a global leader in agricultural innovation with a presence in more than 90 countries. Syngenta is focused on developing technologies and farming practices that empower farmers, so they can make the transformation required to feed the world’s population while preserving our planet. Its bold scientific discoveries deliver better benefits for farmers and society on a bigger scale than ever before. Guided by its Sustainability Priorities, Syngenta is developing new technologies and solutions that support farmers to grow healthier plants in healthier soil with a higher yield. Syngenta Crop Protection is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; Syngenta Seeds is headquartered in the United States. Read our stories and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & X.

About Material Impact:

Material Impact is a champion of the bravest ideas for the future, building deep tech companies powered by material science that solve enduring, large-scale, real-world problems. Learn more at http://www.materialimpact.com.

For media inquiries, please contact Alex Hanes at ahanes@agzen.com

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.