Telsta made its second agtech investment this week, having led a $12 million round in agricultural communications start-up Zenifi and also tipped $2 million in remote monitoring scaling Farmbot Monitoring Solutions.

The telco invested $1 million in Farmbot’s $2.7 million Series A last October.

The startup had marked a Series B in 2022, but took the lump sum from the existing backer instead. This is Telstra’s third investment in the Internet of Things business and its largest.

Andrew Coppin, MD of Farmbot, said the new capital will help the company build its momentum both domestically and abroad.

“Our goal is to create efficiencies in how water is managed to reduce waste and emissions by manually monitoring water for farmers everywhere, and we look forward to leveraging this investment to expand our customer base in 2023.” he said.

“We see it as a huge support that Australia’s largest telco continues to invest and see the opportunity and value in our business.”

The company launched new products this year, including diesel and liquid fertilizer monitoring, to enable better management and control of farm assets.

Farmbot is now helping to monitor water infrastructure on farms with an estimated 10 million beef cattle and 15 million sheep across Australia.

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