NAPA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2023 — CropX Technologies, a global leader in digital solutions for agronomic farm management, today announced its acquisition of Tule Technologies, a precision irrigation company based in California. This acquisition brings new data capture technologies to the CropX Agronomic Farm Management System and expands its market in California drip-irrigated specialty crops.
The CropX system offers its users real-time mobile and desktop insights and advice on irrigation, disease control, nutrient management and more, based on above-ground crop sensing data and below-ground soil monitoring. Tule brings a complementary new mode of data collection from above the plant canopy that precisely determines crop water use, which will enhance CropX’s artificial intelligence predictions, recommendations, and automations, and add to its solutions for drip-irrigated specialty crops such as tree-nuts and vineyards.
Effective immediately, all Tule employees will join CropX, adding expansive on-farm and client service expertise in the specialty crop and drip irrigation space, as well as technology talent to CropX’s growing global team.
“We are excited to welcome Tule to CropX, expanding our offerings to our customers to solve agronomic problems. With Tule’s canopy data incorporated into the CropX system, CropX is adding a new and powerful dimension to the world’s most complete precision irrigation solution,” said Tomer Tzach, CEO of CropX Technologies.
“At Tule, we’ve admired CropX for their agronomic expertise, engineering excellence, and global ambition,” said Dr. Tom Shapland, CEO of Tule Technologies. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to join the CropX team.”
The acquisition comes at a time of increasing demand for precise watering technologies in agriculture. “The farming industry is at the frontlines of global challenges to balance food security with water and other natural resources,” said Dr. John Gates, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Product at CropX. “We are committed to helping our customers manage water confidently and efficiently with technology. Tule’s unique tech and vast experience with California vineyards and orchards are a perfect fit.”
This is the fourth acquisition CropX has made since 2020 and the second US-based company. CropX acquired Nebraska-based CropMetrics in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020, New Zealand-based Regen in Q4 of 2020, and Netherlands-based Dacom Farm Intelligence in Q3 2021, in each case adding expertise, technologies, customers, data and expanding markets.
About CropX Technologies
CropX Technologies is one of the fastest growing providers of agribusiness farm management solutions in the world, deployed in over 60 countries and across all arable continents. The CropX Agronomic Farm Management System synthesizes data from the earth and sky to offer advanced soil and crop intelligence and a suite of digital decision support and planning tools, all on an easy-to-use app capable of tracking multiple farms and fields. CropX is backed by the world’s leading agribusinesses and VCs, who recognize that CropX’s precision-ag technologies set new standards for best practices in environmental sustainability and farm productivity. Learn more at www.cropx.com.
About Tule Technologies
Founded in 2014 with backing from Y-Combinator and others, Tule (pronounced “too-lee”) combines proprietary technology, agronomic expertise, and cutting-edge artificial intelligence to provide farmers with irrigation decision support solutions. Their unique in-field sensor, developed at the University of California, Davis, is the only commercially available device for measuring Actual Evapotranspiration (i.e., the water use of a farm field). The company’s customers include the winemakers who tend to coastal California’s most prized vineyards to the agronomists who farm thousands of acres of tree crops in California’s inland valleys.
Graybar, a leading distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products and provider of related supply chain management and logistics services, today announced that it will acquire Blazer Electric Supply, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, effective March 1, 2024.
Blazer Electric Supply is an electrical distributor that serves construction, commercial, institutional, and industrial customers. The company was founded in 2009 and operates two locations in southern Colorado. As a subsidiary of Graybar, the company will operate under the Blazer Electric Supply name. Trevor Blazer will serve as president, and the company’s employees will continue to support customers with the same products, solutions, and services.
“Blazer is a market leader in its territory, with comprehensive product lines, extensive capabilities and a reputation for outstanding customer service,” said Kathleen M. Mazzarella, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Graybar. “Blazer fits well with Graybar’s core values, our people-oriented culture and our long-term growth strategy. We are thrilled to welcome the Blazer team to Graybar and look forward to achieving even greater success together.”
“I am incredibly proud of our company and grateful for the employees who have been so instrumental in our success,” said Steve Blazer, president of Blazer Electric Supply. “This is an exciting new chapter for our company. Joining forces with Graybar presents a tremendous opportunity to expand our service capabilities and grow our business for the long term. It also allows us to sustain a distinctive culture and positive work environment for our employees. I am confident that we have a bright future as part of Graybar.”
Graybar, a Fortune 500 corporation and one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America, is a leader in the distribution of high quality electrical, communications and data networking products, and specializes in related supply chain management and logistics services. Through its network of more than 325 North American distribution facilities, it stocks and sells products from thousands of manufacturers, helping its customers power, network, automate and secure their facilities with speed, intelligence and efficiency.
Goodnotes, the leading digital paper app, has announced that it has acquired Dropthebit, the creators of Traw, a service that automatically organizes meeting, lecture, and video content into summarized notes and videos. Following the acquisition, Traw’s generative AI technology will be further enhanced and adopted into the Goodnotes platform.
Since its launch in 2020, Traw has focused its efforts on using technology to automate notes creation, both for a user’s own materials and for the content they find online. Following a seed investment led by Capstone Partners and KB Investment, Dropthebit launched Traw’s initial offering, Traw Whiteboard, in 2022. This smart digital whiteboard for lectures and meetings automatically recorded when a user spoke or drew on the board. Traw then automatically edited the video into meeting minutes with subtitles and distilled the video into a document for easy reading and editing. Last May, the company introduced Traw AI, a tool that automatically organized and summarized YouTube video content. Traw AI could create short video or textual summaries and even extract key information from videos into a table format, transforming the research process.
While this comes as Goodnotes’ first acquisition, this is not the company’s first venture in investment aimed at accelerating improvements to the overall user experience. In late 2023, Goodnotes invested $1.9M into South Korea’s largest digital stationery platform, WeBudding. This strategic investment was the first within a larger initiative to partner with rising startups that offer technology or services that complements the burgeoning digital paper space. AI innovation has been a particular focus for Goodnotes following the 2023 launch of Goodnotes 6, which included the world’s first generative AI for handwritten text and thereby transformed Goodnotes into the world’s first AI-powered digital paper company.
“Like many M&As, the meeting of Goodnotes and Traw was like fitting together forgotten puzzle pieces,” said Kyumin Sim, former Traw co-founder and CEO and now a product lead at Goodnotes. “We’ve put a lot of thought into what digital note-taking should look like, so it’s especially an honor to collaborate with Goodnotes, the world’s most popular note-taking app. I’m excited about the new features this will inspire and the value we’ll bring to many people.”
In addition to leveraging the skilled Traw team to create new ways to enhance AI note-taking features, Goodnotes plans to explore extending its offerings beyond “pen and paper” note-taking, incorporating modalities beyond the stylus, and eyeing new mediums to integrate into the platform.
“When I met the Traw team for the first time in Seoul, I knew right away that the AI tools they’ve built for audio and video recordings are a natural fit for Goodnotes,” said Steven, CEO at Goodnotes. “I was really impressed by not only their innovative ideas, but also their passion and drive. We feel very fortunate to be in a position to acquire small, capable teams like Traw to accelerate our roadmap.”
About Goodnotes Goodnotes is the leading AI digital paper used by more than 24 million monthly users worldwide. Launched in 2011, Goodnotes started as an improvement to physical paper notes — introducing the ability to take handwritten digital notes, search handwritten text, and organize everything into a digital library. Today, Goodnotes is pioneering generative AI for digital handwriting in the productivity space. Goodnotes was most recently named Apple’s 2022 iPad App of the Year.
About Dropthebit Dropthebit, established in 2020, is a startup that has been founded to create services to improve everyone’s work efficiency. Its first product, ‘Traw,’ is a service that automatically organizes all content from meetings and lectures on a whiteboard into videos and transcripts. Since this year, it has been launching ‘Traw AI,’ which uses AI technology to organize and convert various data easily.
PrevTech Innovations and Agrivolt have joined forces, introducing an unprecedented offering to the agricultural sector. This acquisition unites their complementary strengths in electrical network safety monitoring and stray voltage control. Together, these two established companies are dedicated to prevention, innovation, and providing solutions and expertise to meet customer needs.
PrevTech Innovations: The leader in Electrical Safety and Prevention PrevTech is the leader in providing advice-based prevention and power safety solutions. Its dedicated team of experts leverages cutting-edge technology and deep understanding of the industry to help businesses identify and mitigate electrical risks effectively and proactively. The company assists business operators in identifying and mitigating electrical and thermal issues that could evolve into much larger problems. Recognized by leading insurance carriers, PrevTech’s mission is to reduce the risk of electrical fires while providing peace of mind to their clients.
Agrivolt: Experts in Stray Voltage Control for Animal Well-Being Agrivolt is the established leader and provider of choice in the field of stray voltage detection, control, and mitigation, having served the agricultural market for over 30 years. Their expertise is supported by more than 2,000 customers across North America. Agrivolt offers a comprehensive range of technologies and certified products designed to detect and neutralize stray voltage, which can be a crucial factor in providing a stress free environment for livestock. Animal welfare and herd productivity are at the heart of Agrivolt’s mission.
A Partnership Rooted in Comprehensive Solutions Uniting PrevTech Innovations and Agrivolt will provide an unparalleled opportunity in today’s protein industry. Combining PrevTech’s advanced monitoring and risk prevention approach with Agrivolt’s specialized solutions for managing stray voltage, these two companies are poised to deliver comprehensive and integrated solutions for electrical network safety and animal welfare.
“Modern farms use a variety of advanced equipment to maximize productivity, resulting in a significant increase in power consumption. The integration of Agrivolt’s cutting-edge products and unique expertise with PrevTech’s proactive approach enables us to provide a complete solution for the safety and integrity of our customers’ electrical network. By raising awareness of the importance of a safe electrical network on farms, we improve their prevention strategy, increase their resilience to the risk of fire and ensure an electrically stress-free environment for animals”, said Pierre-André Meunier, president and founder of PrevTech innovations, who will also take on the role of president of Agrivolt.