London-based Gardin Agritech raises €3.9M led by Dutch VC Navus Ventures

London-based Gardin Agritech, a company that offers an operating system for food production, has secured $4.5M (nearly €3.99M) in a Seed 2 funding round. The UK-based company’s technology is designed to monitor greenhouse crop health at scale and in real time.

The round was led by Navus Ventures, with additional support from Oxford Innovation Finance, LDV Capital, MMC Ventures, Seedcamp, Alchimia Investments, and angel investors.

Sumanta Talukdar, Gardin Agritech’s founder and CEO, says, “Navus Ventures are in my opinion the best Ag focussed investor in Europe with a deep knowledge and network in this ecosystem. The whole Gardin team is very pleased to partner with Navus.”

Jaap Zijlstra, director at Navus, adds, “Gardin has developed a unique, affordable technology that gives growers an actual pulse on their plants and therefore business. A great addition to our portfolio and fit with our strategy and background, we are looking forward to helping Sumanta and the Gardin team through the next phase of commercial scaling.”

Operating system to power the future of farming

Gardin is building a real-world operating system for crop production, designed to help food producers improve yields, nutritional value, and overall output. The company’s closed-loop platform enables continuous monitoring and adjustment of growing conditions, using plant-level data to guide decisions.

The team is led by founder and CEO, Sumanta Talukdar, a serial entrepreneur with experience in optics, photonics, sensors, and computer science. Talukdar previously co-founded and exited WaveOptics in a deal valued at over $500M.

At the core of Gardin’s offering is Gardin Pulse, a system that combines optical remote sensing, machine vision, and AI-driven analytics to monitor plant physiology, particularly photosynthesis, in real time. This gives growers early insight into crop health and development, enabling timely, targeted interventions that improve resource use and production outcomes.

Since launching commercially in June 2023, Gardin’s technology has been deployed across diverse environments—from polytunnels in Spain and Morocco to greenhouses in the Netherlands and Canada—and used on more than 20 crop species. Customers have reported up to a tenfold return on investment.

In 2025, Gardin is advancing efforts in light optimisation and energy efficiency, with trials indicating energy savings of 20–30 per cent. The platform is also being used in seed resilience research, contributing to food system stability.

Agriculture Investments Limited has adopted Gardin’s crop monitoring technology after a successful trial, signing a multi-year contract to support scalable decision-making in greenhouse production. The company cited Gardin’s ability to detect changes in photosynthesis and deliver actionable insights as key to its decision.

Fromboer reported a 5 per cent yield increase per square meter, attributing the gain to more uniform production and improved cost management. Ridder noted performance improvements, including profitability boosts of up to 30 per cent, yield gains of 15 per cent, and earlier detection of crop stress by up to four weeks.

Capital utilisation

Gardin’s latest funding will support the development of its photosynthesis sensor and AI platform, while also enabling the expansion of its commercial team. 

The company aims to grow its customer base across multiple regions and scale the adoption of its crop monitoring technology.

According to Gardin, its growth comes as the $200B Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) market faces increasing pressure from rising energy and labour costs, regulatory demands, and a shortage of skilled growers. The industry is turning to AI-powered platforms like Gardin’s to manage complex data and enable precise, automated decision-making at scale.