Verdi, a Canadian irrigation company born out of University of British Columbia’s startup incubator HATCH, has raised CA$6.5 million (US$4.7 million) in its latest oversubscribed seed round, bringing total funding to $9.5 million.

Verdi said it now powers irrigation automation for some of the world’s largest food and beverage brands on more than 5,000 acres of farmland in North America.

“Our mission is to overcome the traditional adoption barriers that have prevented farmers from scaling irrigation automation, and in turn allow them to increase farm efficiency and resilience,” said Arthur Chen, CEO and co-founder of Verdi. “This round fuels our ability to scale rapidly and continue delivering impact where it matters most – on the farm.”

Verdi’s patented smart devices retrofit intelligence onto existing irrigation infrastructure, eliminating the need for disruptive rollouts. Its technology also enables advanced capabilities such as remote leak detection and row-level irrigation control.

The company said farms using Verdi have seen up to 90 percent labour savings, 70 percent water savings and 20 percent yield improvements, while reducing automation costs by an order of magnitude. This accessible approach has fueled Verdi’s growth across the U.S. and Canada, more than doubling its team in the past year to 24 experts in agronomy, hardware and AI-driven software.

With this new investment, Verdi said it will continue expanding into new regions, advancing its AI-powered platform, and deepening its relationships with major agribusinesses to “drive automation at scale and build a more climate-resilient food system.”

The funding round was led by SVG Ventures, with participation from NEC X, Ponderosa Ventures (a member of Galvanize Climate Solutions’ platform), Elemental Impact, GenomeBC, One Small Planet, Waterpoint Lane, Dangerous Ventures, VentureUs, Echo River Capital, Cyan Ventures, Jetstream, and Baker Hall Capital.