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October 2, 2013 04:23 pm GMT

Monsanto Acquires Weather Big Data Company Climate Corporation For $1.1B

Screen Shot 2013-10-02 at 5.29.52 AMGood morning everyone. Today’s big acquisition, a huge agritech exit: Bio tech company Monsanto has bought Climate Corporation for approximately $1.1 billion. While the Monsanto press release says $930 million, we’re hearing from investors that the actual price is past the $1 billion mark because part of the all cash deal is still in escrow. Below is my invite to the media call at 8am, and here is a link to the press release on the Monsanto home page. The news comes on the same day that Monsanto reported a larger-than-expected, and growing, 4th quarter loss, of $249 million, or $0.47 per share. Its positioning this acquisition as part of a longer-term recovery plan, with Climate Corporation’s technology to monitor and track climate change helping Monsanto manage future risk better. Good morning, Monsanto just announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Climate Corporation for $930M. The full press release and supporting information is available on https://www.monsanto.com. The acquisition will combine The Climate Corporations expertise in agriculture analytics and risk-management with Monsantos R&D capabilities, and will provide farmers access to more information about the many factors that affect the success of their crops. We would like to invite you to join us later this morning for a call related to todays announcement. Well use this call to provide details about the announcement and then have an opportunity to take some of your questions. David Friedberg, chief executive officer of The Climate Corporation and Monsantos executive vice president of global strategy, Kerry Preete will provide an overview of the announcement. Climate Corporation is backed byFounders Fund, Khosla,Google Ventures,NEA,Index VenturesandAtomico. The company uses machine learning in order to predict the weather and other essential elements for agribusiness. Monsanto focuses on providing seeds, biotechnology traits and crop production products for farmers around the world. The company will continue to operate as the Climate Corporation, and Monsanto will leverage its big data expertise to optimize farming globally. The COO of Climate Corporation Greg Smirin tells me that the acquisition is an ideal fit for both companies, “As we all know, the weather is becoming more extreme. We found that we had kindred spirits with the folks at Monsanto. The data science that we have developed can be applied to improve production immensely.” Here’s an interview with Climate Corporation CEO, and ex-Googler,David Friedberg while we update this post.

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/m9kyRkpYi9Q/

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