paditch, a smart agriculture service for rice paddies, raises 100 million yen in Series A funding

What is the agri-tech startup "Laugh No Wa"? 

Agriculture is facing a difficult time due to a mountain of problems such as farmers leaving agriculture due to aging, lack of bearers, increase in abandoned farmland, and abnormal weather conditions. Laugh No Wa is an agri-tech venture that utilizes IT, IoT, AI, robots, and other technologies to solve these problems and build the next generation of agriculture (smart paddy fields) from Toyama.
By spreading smart agriculture, it will contribute to super energy-efficiency in farm work, increase income by expanding the area of arable land and increasing yields for one farmer, and prevent farmers from falling into waterways. It also takes on the challenge of creating a future in which younger generations choose agriculture as a career.

 Realization of super energy saving. What is "paditch," a smart agriculture service for paddy fields? 

The smart paddy field service "paditch" is a product that remotely and automatically controls the water management process, the most time-consuming and labor-intensive part of the agricultural work process.
The system can open and close automatically according to the water level and temperature, and can also be set to open and close automatically on a timer. The introduction of paditch has been proven to reduce water management labor by 801 TP3T by the National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences, a third-party organization.
As of November 2020, they have been installed in 490 locations throughout Japan, not only helping to reduce water management time and labor, but also improving rice yield and quality.
It also helps prevent farm accidents because there is no need to take the risk of going to adjust sluice gates and hydrants during heavy rains or high summer temperatures.

About this fundraising 

With this funding, the company will enhance cultivation and farming guidance using data from its existing service "paditch gate02+" and develop "paditch drain 01," a drainage valve that can be remotely dammed in rice paddies. The company will work closely with farmers and absorb feedback from the field to help increase rice yield and quality, with a focus on water management.
It will also promote the raising of the agri-tech industry and future market expansion.

 List of Underwriters (in no particular order) 

Monozukuri Ventures Corporation, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital Co.

Comment from Mr. Shigemasa Makino, President, Monozukuri Ventures, Inc.  

Increasing Japan's food self-sufficiency rate has become an urgent issue, and we see productivity improvement in the agricultural sector as a major social challenge. Various solutions have been proposed for agricultural issues in the past, but they have not been successfully introduced. In this context, Laugh No Wa has been trying to develop services that farmers need while listening carefully to their voices. The smart paddy field management "paditch" they developed has been installed in nearly 500 units, mainly in Toyama, and the system has been very well received. We are convinced that paditch will be a key device to solve the manpower shortage and heavy labor in the agricultural sector in the future, and we also want to contribute to IoT in the agricultural sector in cooperation with Laughing No Wa, which is why we participated in this round.

 Masayuki Shiromatsu, Investment Development Principal, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital Co. 

We invested in Laugh No Wa because of its uniqueness and potential as a smart agriculture startup that aims to update paddy rice farming for the next 100 years by utilizing "paditch," a sluice/valve type IoT device, and the data obtained from it.
In addition, the founder, Mr. Shimomura, is an engineer from a farming family, and we highly appreciate his persistent efforts to expand his business by staying close to farmers, and we expect him to be an entrepreneur who will spread his wings not only in Japan but also in the world.
Rice is essential to the Japanese people as their staple food, and we are confident that the demand for "paditch" will grow further as it can solve issues such as lack of successors and high temperatures. We will actively support business expansion in various ways.

Laughing No Wa Co.

Smart paddy field service paditch reference information

home page:https://paditch.com/

Online Store:ttps://paditch.com/store/