Electric Plant Raises $11.2M Seed for Plant-Signal AI Model
Electric Plant closed an $11.2M seed round led by Onto Ventures and Climactic to advance its AI model Bombadil, which interprets electrical signals from plants, and its low-cost sensor hardware.
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US-based AI startup Electric Plant has announced the completion of an $11.2 million seed round, co-led by Onto Ventures and Climactic, with participation from Ponderosa, Endeavor Catalyst, and other investors. The company is building Bombadil, a large language model designed to interpret microvolt-level electrical signals coursing through plant stems, relaying real-time needs to growers.
Co-founder Justin Mast noted that traditional agricultural monitoring tools like soil probes and satellite imagery, while sophisticated, lack the ability to access internal plant data in real time. Electric Plant's sensors cost tens of dollars compared to thousands for existing equipment, requiring only a few per acre to feed data to the cloud-based Bombadil model.
Bombadil currently covers approximately 125 different species. Mast claims the system can boost yields while reducing water usage by at least 20%, though this impact remains unverified by independent studies. The new funding will primarily support the commercialization of the sensors and the model.