Deere & Company Acquires Blue River Technology for $305 Million

Heavy equipment manufacturer Deere & Company announced that it will acquire Sunnyvale, CA-based Blue River Technology, an innovator in bringing machine learning to agricultural spraying equipment, for $305 million. The transaction is expected to close this month.

Blue River Technology, which was founded in 2011 by two Stanford University graduates, plans to bring crop protection into the digital era with See & Spray machines that precisely observe and treat each plant in a field. By applying herbicides only to weeds, the machines dramatically reduce the quantity of chemicals used, enable farmers to choose any herbicide that meets their needs, and improve grower economics. Blue River Technology believes its precision farming technology can save farmers up to 90 percent of chemical costs compared to more traditional approaches.

Blue River Technology had previously raised slightly more than $30 million in funding from investors, including Khosla Ventures, Data Collective, Syngenta Ventures, and Innovation Endeavors.