AgFunderNews can reveal that the deal was worth more than $40 million in equity capital, according to sources close to the deal. The funding will go towards the completion of 80 Acres' Hamilton, Ohio facility, which was announced last year and is set to be partially operational in the next few months. It will be automated from seeding to growing to harvesting featuring handling robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and around-the-clock monitoring sensors and control systems to optimize every aspect of growing produce indoors. The company also has facilities -- that are more manually operated -- in Arkansas, North Carolina and Alabama from which it serves local major national grocers, local retailers, restaurants, and food service companies with leafy greens, tomatoes, micro greens and herbs. It expects to add grapes and strawberries in the near future.

Ecosia, a German startup with an internet search engine, today, has brought in enough revenues to enable it to plant 50 million trees. This equates to the removal of 2.5 million tonnes of Co2 from the atmosphere, according to the company. Ecosia has used the profits from advertisements on its search engine to plant trees in Kenya, Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, Tanzania, Madagascar, Colombia, Peru, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Morocco, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana and Nicaragua. Ecosia has partnered with Bing, Microsoft's search engine, to get results for users, but receives a majority portion of any revenues. After covering its internal costs, everything left goes towards planting trees; Ecosia is a non-profit organization.

Investment in seafood and aquaculture technology increased 271% compared to the $52 million raised across both 2014 and 2015, but there is still a huge need for technology to bring efficiency and sustainability to the industry.

Editor's Note: Malika Cantor is a partner at Comet Labs, a venture capital firm and research lab focused on artificial intelligence, and Micki Seibel is head of product at Orange Silicon Valley, part of French telecommunications giant Orange. The two organizations recently partnered on the publication of a report entitled: Bringing Digital Intelligence to Indoor Farming -- urban agriculture in the age of AI. Here Cantor and Seibel write about some of the report's key takeaways and data points. Ability to move production closer to the point of consumption Opportunity to drop genetic traits focused on outdoors -- pest resistance, drought tolerance, etc. -- in favor of traits for nutrient density and flavor. Higher nutrient density and less food spoilage due to shorter distance traveled Opportunity to broaden the crop portfolio as economies of scale are reached with current crops -(mostly leafy greens, cannabis, and vine crops like tomatoes).