Valmont Industries today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Prospera Technologies Inc., (“Prospera”) a leading privately-held Israeli-based AI company, focused on ML and CV in agriculture. The transaction, valued at approximately $300 million, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.
Since 2019, Valmont and Prospera have successfully integrated AI technologies with center pivot irrigation to develop real-time crop analysis and anomaly detection solutions, resulting in strong adoption and greater returns for the grower. Leveraging Prospera’s unique technology, the partnership has expanded its intelligent solutions, monitoring five million acres in 2020 against an original estimate of one million, with twice as many growers using the service as compared to 2019. Grower adoption is expected to double in 2021 with greater acceleration in the near-term.
- Unique, Disruptive and Differentiated Value Proposition: The transaction will create the largest global, vertically-integrated AI company in agriculture, immediately providing a highly differentiated in-season solution. Using the pivot as the digital data hub, this solution brings demonstrated, advanced agronomy and unprecedented visibility to the field, enabling the grower to take immediate action to remediate issues. Leveraging Prospera’s technology and Valmont’s global reach and omnipresence on the field, the combination will create the first commercially available subscription model of its kind, providing innovative and disruptive solutions to help growers lower costs, increase yields, use less land and save time.
- Entrepreneurial Spirit and Key Talent Additions: Adds talent across technology, data science and agronomy, including Prospera’s senior leadership team and 90 colleagues, all of whom will continue with the business post-close. With senior leadership headquartered in Austin, Texas, one of the nation’s rapidly-growing tech hubs, and an R&D center located in Tel Aviv, Israel, an international ML and CV center, Prospera is well-positioned to expand its unique pool of talent, continuing growth and innovation with the same entrepreneurial spirit that has led to its success.
Founded in 2014 and backed by strategic investors including Bessemer, Qualcomm, Cisco, More and Tekfen, Prospera has recently been listed among the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers and CB Insights Top 100 AI Companies, Frost & Sullivan New Product Innovation and Fast Company World Changing Ideas, and has received the AgFunder Innovation Award.
Valmont will invest approximately $300 million to fully acquire Prospera and the transaction will be financed through a combination of funds from available cash and the Company’s revolving credit facility. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 and will be reported within Valmont’s Irrigation segment.
