Verdi Nabs $6.5M CAD Seed Round to Democratize Smart Irrigation Across North America

Courtesy: Verdi

Canadian agtech startup Verdi has announced the close of a $6.5 million CAD ($4.7 million USD) oversubscribed seed round to accelerate deployment of its retrofit irrigation automation platform. Led by SVG Ventures, the round drew support from an extensive group of climate and innovation-focused backers including NEC X, Ponderosa Ventures (a member of the Galvanize Climate Solutions platform), GenomeBC, Elemental Impact, One Small Planet, Waterpoint Lane, Dangerous Ventures, VentureUs, Echo River Capital, Cyan Ventures, Jetstream, and Baker Hall Capital. The raise brings Verdi’s total funding to $9.5 million CAD.

Founded by Arthur Chen and Jelte Blom, Verdi is tackling one of the most persistent bottlenecks in modern agriculture: irrigation inefficiency. Traditional automation systems are often expensive, labor-intensive to deploy, and difficult to scale across different farm types. Verdi’s solution takes a different path—developing AI-powered devices that can be easily retrofitted onto existing irrigation infrastructure without requiring disruptive upgrades or overhauls.

“Farmers have long recognized the benefits of irrigation automation, but the barrier to adoption has always been complexity and cost,” said Arthur Chen, Verdi’s CEO and Co-founder. “Our platform is designed to remove those barriers, delivering immediate value and unlocking operational improvements that previously required significant capital and labor.”

The company’s impact in the field has been compelling. Since scaling its solution, Verdi has deployed across more than 5,000 acres of farmland, including operations tied to major food and beverage brands. In 2024 alone, its customers saved over $1 million in irrigation-related labor and more than 100 million liters of water. Farmers using the system have reported labor savings of up to 90%, water use reductions of up to 70%, and crop yield increases averaging 20%. At the same time, the automation costs are a fraction of conventional systems—making adoption far more feasible for small and mid-sized farms.

The retrofit model has proven particularly attractive in regions facing increasing climate pressure. With growing concerns around water availability, energy costs, and labor shortages, Verdi’s practical and adaptable technology offers growers a path to resilience without overhauling entire operations.

“What stood out to us was not just Verdi’s technology, but how seamlessly it integrates into the existing agricultural ecosystem,” said John Hartnett, CEO of SVG Ventures. “They’ve developed a solution that doesn’t ask farmers to reinvent the wheel—it simply makes the wheel smarter. That kind of accessibility is essential for scaling climate resilience.”

The new capital will support Verdi’s geographic expansion across North America and beyond, deepen development of its AI platform, and grow its commercial partnerships with agribusinesses, irrigation firms, and food manufacturers. The company has more than doubled its team over the past year to 24 employees, adding expertise in agronomy, data science, hardware, and embedded software.

As on-farm digitization continues to attract investor attention—particularly in water-scarce regions—Verdi’s approach positions it at the intersection of automation, resource efficiency, and real-time analytics. It joins a cohort of agtech startups aiming to reframe climate adaptation not as a distant goal, but as a set of near-term, implementable tools that generate ROI on day one.

“We’re building more than just a product—we’re building a platform for precision irrigation that can scale with farms as they grow, and evolve with the challenges they face,” Chen said.

With this raise, Verdi is not just signaling its readiness to scale, but also its belief that widespread irrigation automation can be both low-cost and high-impact—one retrofit at a time.