Taranis

The problem: a field too big to scout on foot

Taranis was founded in Tel Aviv in 2015 by Ofir Schlam, Eli Bukchin, Asaf Horvitz and Ayal Karmi, and Amihay Gornik joined as an additional founder in 2017. Its starting point is a familiar piece of farm work. An agronomist who needs to know what is happening in a field of thousands of dunams can sample only a small part of it on foot, and a pest or disease that starts in one corner is sometimes discovered only when the damage is already visible. A regular satellite image covers the whole field, but it is not sharp enough to make out an insect on a leaf.

The product: leaf-level imaging and machine-learning analysis

According to Calcalist, the company operates drones and low-flying aircraft that photograph the crops at very high resolution in flight, and an artificial intelligence system analyzes the images together with satellite images and sensor data. According to NoCamels, weather forecasts and data from a field-scouting app are added as well. The system looks for early signs of disease, insect infestation, nutrient deficiencies and water damage. In 2022 the company said its models had been trained on a database of more than 200 million labeled data points. That is the company's own figure, with no outside verification. The practical idea is to treat only the spots that need it, instead of spraying a whole field. In orchards, SeeTree, a Tel Aviv company, does something similar: it uses machine learning to analyze drone images and produces data at the level of the individual tree.

Funding and growth

In July 2020 the company, registered as Taranis-Visual, raised $30 million in a Series C led by Vertex Growth, K3 Ventures and Hitachi, bringing its total funding to $60 million. At the time it employed about 80 people, half of them at its development center in Tel Aviv. In September 2022 it raised another $40 million in a Series D led by the European climate fund Inven Capital, bringing its total funding to $100 million. The company said then that it had doubled its revenue but did not give a figure, and reported 110 employees, 70 of them in Israel.

The move to the US market and the partnership with Syngenta

Taranis's main customers are input retailers and agricultural advisers in the United States, Brazil and Europe, who receive the insights and pass them on to farmers. In 2022 the company said that more than 100 retailers and advisers were working with it. In October 2025, Syngenta Crop Protection and Taranis, which had already worked together for several years, announced a strategic partnership meant to expand the service to retailers across the US Midwest in 2026. In January 2026 the company launched a trial program with the drone maker SiFly to test long-range drones that cover more ground on each flight. In announcements from 2026, Taranis describes itself as a US-based company.

What this case shows

Taranis shows a recurring pattern in agricultural technology: the model itself is only part of the product. To deliver an insight, you also need to collect images in the field, operate aircraft during the growing season, and sell through whoever is already in contact with the farmer. That is why the partnership with a large crop protection company is not a minor detail but a central distribution channel.