A Wyoming startup is shedding light on one of agriculture's most expensive blind spots by turning every tractor into a real-time soil lab.
LARAMIE, WY / ACCESS Newswire / August 12, 2025 / Fertilizer is the biggest input cost in agriculture, and soil fertility is the least understood. Despite billions spent each year, most growers are still flying blind beneath the surface. They rely on lab tests that are weeks old before they hit the field. They're forced to guess, extrapolate, and hope.
Soil Action believes farmers deserve better than hope and hindsight.
The Wyoming-based ag intelligence company has raised $5.25 million in seed funding to bring real-time soil chemistry analysis to the tractor cab. Using AI and affordable off-the-shelf sensors, Soil Action is building what has never existed before: a soil lab that operates in real-time, in the field, on the tractor, and at a price point every grower can afford.
"Farmers don't need more data, they need the right data at the right moment," said Dr. Nate Storey, co-founder and CEO of Soil Action. "We're replacing a $1 million lab with a $10,000 piece of edge computing equipment that mounts to your tractor and tells you exactly what your soil is doing right now."
Today, soil testing is slow, expensive, and outdated. Samples are pulled by hand, sent to labs, and returned days or weeks later, offering a narrow snapshot of a dynamic, living system. Worse still, these tests usually report nutrient concentrations, not chemical forms, and plants only take up certain forms.
Soil Action's platform solves this. It combines near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with proprietary machine learning models to detect the form and availability of nutrients in real-time. As the tractor moves, the system reads the soil, processes the data, and builds a layered map of nutrient dynamics on the fly. No lab required.
"Knowing that you have nitrogen isn't enough," said Storey. "You need to know what kind, where it's moving, and whether the plant can access it. That's what makes better decisions, and that's what saves money."
Soil Action is already working with a group of seasoned farmers in Northern Iowa to trial its system across diverse soil types and agronomic conditions. Early results show strong model generalization and nutrient predictions that outperform legacy benchmarks, especially in variable or degraded soils.
A Category-Defining Vision
The $5.25 million seed round was led by R7 Partners, with participation from Climactic VC, Dolby Family Ventures, Ponderosa Ventures, The University of Wyoming Foundation, and Ag Ventures Alliance. The funding will support:
Expanding field trials with farmers across key U.S. row crop regions
Deepening grower collaboration to validate agronomic impact in the field
Accelerating model development and validation
Scaling field deployment and engineering teams
Building partnerships with OEMs, input providers, and agronomic platforms
"We're not building a point solution," said Storey. "We're building the foundation for a new era of precision fertility-one that starts below the surface."
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About Soil Action
Soil Action is an agricultural intelligence company based in Laramie, Wyoming. Founded by a team of farmers, scientists, and technologists, we use AI and affordable sensors to deliver real-time soil chemistry insights so farmers can take action, not just collect data. Our mission is to democratize access to high-resolution agronomic data and make every acre more productive, efficient, and resilient.
Media Contact:
Dan Schultz
press@schultzcollaborative.com
(952) 356-2646
www.soilaction.com
SOURCE: Soil Action
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/agriculture/soil-action-raises-5.25m-to-end-the-guesswork-beneath-the-surface-1059841
