CIBC Innovation Banking Provides Precision Crop Management Company SemiosBio With a $25 Million Growth Capital Financing to Support Expansion

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CIBC Innovation Banking is pleased to announce a $25 million growth capital financing with Vancouver-based SemiosBio Technologies Inc., a leader in developing technology solutions for the precision crop management industry. The capital will be used by the company to support growth into new crops and new geographies, and for strategic acquisitions.

An industry-leading precision crop management platform, Semios provides a proprietary in-field Internet of Things (IoT) network of over 1 million sensors that monitor and predict insect, disease, water, and frost risk in near real-time. Collecting 350 million data points daily, this information is fed through established and proprietary models and then provided to the grower in a simple, powerful mobile or web interface.

The data enables growers of high-value crops (apples, almonds, pistachios) to make management decisions that reduce their agricultural inputs and increase the quality and yield of their crop.

“Semios is bringing advanced software and hardware to precision crop management with a vision to making the global food supply chain more efficient and safer to the increasing global population that relies on it,” said Joe Timlin, Managing Director, CIBC Innovation Banking Vancouver. “We are pleased and proud to play a role in helping Semios achieve its important goals.”

The company recently announced $100 million CAD in private equity funding led by Morningside Group, a Boston-based private equity and venture capital firm.

“This timely support of $25 million in debt facilities from CIBC will complement our recent $100 million equity raise to accelerate research, development, partnerships and acquisitions, helping growers around the world produce high quality food sustainably” said Michael Gilbert, CEO, Semios.

Today’s announcement is in-line with CIBC’s commitment to support $150 billion in environmental and sustainable financing activities by 2027.

About CIBC Innovation Banking

CIBC Innovation Banking delivers strategic advice, cash management and funding to North American innovation companies at each stage of their business cycle, from start up to IPO and beyond. With offices in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Menlo Park, Montreal, Reston, Toronto and Vancouver, the team has extensive experience and a strong, collaborative approach that extends across CIBC’s commercial banking and capital markets businesses in the U.S. and Canada.

About Semios

Founded in 2010, Vancouver-based Semios offers a precision farming platform that provides real-time crop data and pest management tools for growers of tree fruit, nut and vine crops. Leveraging a proprietary, in-orchard IoT wireless network, machine learning, and big data analytics, Semios helps farmers manage insect pests, disease, frost and irrigation. The Semios analytics engine draws on diverse sources of data and information including a robust, wireless network of in-canopy IoT sensors on each customer farm measuring climate, soil moisture, insect and disease activity. Since 2018, Semios has been named to the Global Cleantech 100, an annual list of the 100 most innovative cleantech companies globally, and the Thrive Top 50, list of the 50 leading global AgTech companies. www.semios.com