Mitti Labs Bags $9.5 Mn To Make Rice Cultivation Water-Efficient

Climate tech startup Mitti Labs has raised $9.5 Mn (around ₹90 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by Aramco Ventures. The round also saw participation from Godrej Industries Group, Cisco Foundation, Volta Circle and existing backer Lightspeed India.

The US-based company, which also has a team in Bengaluru, aims to deploy the freshly raised funds to expand its operations across India and set up new greenfield projects in the Philippines and Indonesia. A chunk of the capital will also be deployed to expand its AWD (alternate wetting and drying) program across these geographies.

AWD is a water management technique in which farmers let the field dry out to a measured depth a few times during the growing season, instead of keeping paddies continuously flooded. The field is later re-flood on a set schedule. If implemented correctly, this technique cuts water use by close to 40% and methane emissions by more than half, Mitti Labs claims.

“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 Mn smallholder farmers,” said Mitti Labs cofounder Xavi Laguarta Soler.

Founded in 2023 by Soler, Devdut Dalal and Nate Torbick, Mitti Labs helps farmers adopt alternate irrigation practices that reduce water consumption without compromising crop yields.

It helps tillers adopt AWD and then integrates it with its GeoAI platform to verify the success of the practice at scale. The GeoAI platform combines satellite radar, ground data, and physical models to create a digital twin of each farm plot to track soil moisture, flooding and crop health.

This lets Mitti Labs turn verified water and methane savings into monetisable outcomes such as carbon credits, which can be sold to companies looking to offset emissions. The startup said that it currently works with more than 150 Mn rice farmers with small land holdings. 

With the latest fundraise, Mitti Labs has raised more than $12.5 Mn in funding till date. 

The fundraise comes as homegrown clean tech startups continue to see healthy investor interest on the back of government subsidies, zero-emission commitments and growing user adoption of green technologies. 

In March, smart grid solutions startup Kimbal raised $22 Mn in its Series B round led by GEF Capital Partners. In the same month, Bengaluru-based cleantech startup Newtrace secured $6.3 Mn in a Pre-Series A round led by HDFC Bank Limited and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital. A month later in April, clean energy startup Ecoil also bagged $2.5 Mn in its Series A round led by Fundalogical Ventures.

As per Inc42 data, the sector raised $8.8 Bn between 2014 and 2025 and is growing at a CAGR of 15%. At the heart of all this is the homegrown cleantech economy, which is projected to become a $41 Bn opportunity by 2040.

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