Saudi Aramco’s venture capital arm, Aramco Ventures, has made its first investment in an Indian startup after leading a $9.5 million Series A funding round for climate-tech company Mitti Labs.
The recipient startup, Mitti Labs seeks to expand its artificial intelligence-powered solutions for more water-efficient and climate-resilient rice farming across Asia.
The investment, which also attracted participation from Lightspeed India, Godrej Industries Group, Cisco Foundation, Francis Family Fund and Volta Circle, brings Mitti Labs’ total funding since its 2023 launch to $12.5 million.
The deal comes as rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and growing pressure on agricultural water supplies increase the urgency of developing more sustainable food-production systems.
Mitti Labs is using satellite imagery, AI and field-level agricultural data to help farmers reduce water consumption and methane emissions without compromising rice yields.
What to Know About Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco, formally known as Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is one of the world’s largest energy companies and a major player in the global oil and gas industry.
Beyond its traditional energy business, however, the company has increasingly sought opportunities in emerging technologies through its investment arm, Aramco Ventures.
The venture arm invests in startups and technologies that can support new industrial opportunities and address challenges around energy, sustainability and technological transformation.
Its decision to lead Mitti Labs’ Series A round is therefore notable because it represents Aramco Ventures’ first investment in an Indian startup.
The move also reflects the growing interest of Gulf-based investors in technologies capable of addressing climate change, water scarcity and agricultural resilience.
By backing an Indian climate-tech company, Aramco Ventures is gaining exposure to a rapidly developing agricultural technology ecosystem while supporting a solution targeted at one of Asia’s most important food crops.
What is Mitti Labs and What Does It Do?
Mitti Labs is a climate-tech startup founded in 2023 by Devdut Dalal, Xavier Laguarta Soler and Nathan Torbick.
The company has developed a GeoAI platform that combines high-resolution synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery, proprietary field data and physical models to create what it describes as digital twins of individual rice fields.
In simple terms, the technology creates a data-driven digital representation of a farm that can be monitored remotely.
With support from NASA, the platform is designed to help farmers, businesses and project partners understand conditions within individual fields, including crop health, soil moisture, flooding and irrigation practices.
Rather than relying entirely on farmers to physically inspect fields or estimate water requirements, Mitti Labs uses satellite technology and artificial intelligence to provide more detailed information about what is happening on the ground.
This allows agricultural stakeholders to make better-informed decisions about irrigation and crop management.
The Problem Mitti Labs is Trying to Solve
Mitti Labs is targeting a significant challenge at the intersection of food security, water scarcity and climate change. Rice is one of the world’s most water-intensive crops and, according to the information provided by the company, consumes more than 30 per cent of global irrigation water.
Traditional rice cultivation also commonly involves keeping fields flooded for extended periods, a practice that creates conditions for methane production. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming.
At the same time, farmers are increasingly facing hotter temperatures and unpredictable rainfall patterns, making access to sufficient water more difficult.
This creates a difficult balancing act, the world needs rice to feed billions of people, but producing it through conventional methods can place substantial pressure on water resources and the climate.
Mitti Labs is attempting to address this challenge by helping farmers maintain rice production while using water more efficiently and reducing emissions from flooded fields.
How Mitti Labs Uses AI and Satellite Technology to Help Farmers
The company’s technology essentially brings artificial intelligence and satellite monitoring into everyday agricultural decision-making. Its GeoAI platform analyses high-resolution satellite imagery alongside field-level information and scientific models to understand the condition of individual rice farms.
This can reveal information about soil moisture, flooding, crop health and irrigation practices without requiring constant physical inspections. One of the key practices the platform promotes is Alternate Wetting and Drying, commonly known as AWD.
Instead of keeping rice fields permanently flooded, AWD allows fields to periodically dry before they are irrigated again.
According to Mitti Labs, this approach can reduce water consumption by nearly 40 per cent and methane emissions by more than 50 per cent while maintaining crop yields.
The company’s co-founder Xavi Laguarta said, “With our technology and scalable operational model, we can transform how rice is grown, lower emissions and cut water consumption while building resilient livelihoods for 150 million smallholder farmers.”
The ambition therefore extends beyond technology deployment to potentially improving the livelihoods of millions of farmers.
What the New $9.5 Million Funding Will Be Used For
The newly secured $9.5 million will provide Mitti Labs with additional capital to scale its operations beyond its existing activities in India. The company plans to deepen its presence across the Indian market while establishing new projects in the Philippines and subsequently expanding into Indonesia.
Both countries are important rice-producing markets, making them natural targets for a company seeking to replicate its model across Asia. Expansion will require more than simply making its software available in new countries.
Mitti Labs will need to build relationships with farmers, agricultural organisations and other project partners while adapting its technology and field operations to different farming systems.
As the company enters more markets, it will also have access to larger and more diverse agricultural datasets. That could strengthen its ability to understand different rice-growing environments and improve the performance and scalability of its platform.
The funding is therefore intended not only to expand the company’s geographic footprint but also to strengthen the operational infrastructure behind its technology.
Creating an Additional Income Stream for Farmers
Another important component of Mitti Labs’ model is the potential for farmers participating in its programmes to generate carbon credits.
By adopting farming practices that reduce methane emissions, farmers can potentially contribute to measurable greenhouse-gas reductions that may qualify for carbon credits under applicable carbon-market standards and verification processes.
These credits can then provide an additional potential source of income. The idea is particularly significant for smallholder farmers, many of whom operate on relatively narrow margins and have limited opportunities to increase their earnings.
If the emissions reductions generated through improved rice cultivation can be accurately measured, verified and monetised, farmers could benefit financially from adopting more sustainable practices.
However, the success of this model depends on reliable measurement, credible verification and sufficient demand for the resulting credits.
For Mitti Labs, integrating agricultural technology with carbon markets could therefore create a business model in which environmental improvements and farmer incomes are pursued simultaneously.
Why the Investment Matters for Asia’s Food and Water Security
The significance of the Mitti Labs investment extends beyond the company and its investors because rice occupies a central position in Asia’s food system. The crop accounts for roughly one-fifth of cultivated land across the region and supports millions of smallholder farmers.
As climate change intensifies pressure on agricultural production, improving the efficiency with which water is used to grow rice could become increasingly important.
A technology that helps farmers reduce irrigation requirements without sacrificing yields could contribute to greater resilience in regions where water availability is becoming less predictable.
At the same time, reducing methane emissions from rice cultivation could support wider climate-reduction efforts. This makes agricultural technologies such as Mitti Labs’ platform relevant to governments, food companies, climate investors and development organisations in addition to farmers.
If the company can successfully replicate its approach across major rice-producing markets, its platform could become part of a broader technology-driven effort to make Asian agriculture more resilient while addressing environmental pressures.
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