“Soil sampling is every farmer’s least favorite task in their already busy
TerraBlaster, the California-based agtech startup he recently joined as CEO, aims to make that task less burdensome for farmers and agronomists with sensor technology originally developed for space. By providing a laser-based soil-analysis system, the company enables farming operations to glean faster insights about their fields and save significant amounts in fertilizer costs.
“This is the number one opportunity in agtech right now,” Heraud tells AgFunderNews.
As Shane Thomas at Upstream Ag Insights pointed out, those words carry some hefty weight, given Heraud’s background.
Following more than a decade at PTx Trimble, he co-founded Blue River Technologies, which Deere acquired in 2017 for its “See & Spray” technology in one of agtech’s biggest acquisitions. Blue River is now one of the stars of Deere’s product lineup.
After seven years as VP of automation and autonomy at Deere, Heraud transitioned out of the role in 2024 to focus on advising agtech startups, including Rootwave, Agtonomy, Dogtooth Technologies, and TerraBlaster.
TerraBlaster’s mission enticed him enough to join in a full-time capacity.
“I like opportunities that are huge in both financial impact and environmental impact,” he tells AgFunderNews. “TerraBlaster is going after fertilizer, probably the largest expense for farmers worldwide, and can also be very good for the world and good for the farmer. It saves time, saves money, increases yields, and reduces waste.”
From Mars to farming
TerraBlaster’s sensor utilizes laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), a technology developed by aerospace company Impossible Sensing for NASA. It was originally designed for a geological research institute and eventually made its way into the Mars rover a little more than a decade ago.
LIBS can analyze the elements present in a given material by shooting a laser that erodes the sample’s surface, forming a plasma of excited atoms and ions.
As these atoms and ions break down again, they emit a light spectrum the sensor can instantly analyze to determine the elemental composition of the material.
In an agricultural context, this technology can reveal the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other essential elements present in the soil.
“You go out to the field with your ATV or tractor and drag a rugged sensor through the soil. It opens a little channel, six inches deep, and it can measure the channel,” explains Heraud. “The sensor will tell you what’s in your soil, and you come out of the field with a little map.”
Right now, the product is geared towards farmers and agronomists who can make decisions based on the information collected by the sensor—where (or where not) to apply fertilizer, for example.
‘Much more convenient’ soil sampling
Heraud says a critical win for the technology is that it doesn’t require any extra steps or effort on the part of a farmer or agronomist.
Regular soil sampling requires individuals to stop every two and a half acres or so, take 10 core soil samples along with GPS coordinates, and send the package out for analysis. It’s a lengthy, time-consuming process that, as noted above, nobody likes to do.
TerraBlaster’s tech would replace these activities, making the process of soil sampling “so much more convenient,” says Heraud. (He notes that the company would not necessarily replace deep sampling, a type of soil analysis that’s done three feet below ground.)
The tech also provides a way to rein in fertilizer costs, which are the number one expenditure in agriculture, used on every single crop, he says.
Agricultural operations spend about $250 billion per year on fertilizer. About $100 billion of that is wasted due to overuse, he adds.
And over-fertilization comes with a well-known list of consequences: less profit for farmers, more expensive food for consumers, contamination in drinking water, and hypoxic regions.
A system that can, in real time, analyze when and where to put fertilizer could mitigate against many of these negative effects, he says.
Conversely, TerraBlaster can also help growers determine when there isn’t enough on a given acre.
The tech has clearly turned the heads of investors: TerraBlaster also announced last week it’s not-quite-closed $3 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, which was also an early investor in Blue River Technologies. Names of other investors in the round have not yet been publicly disclosed.
Of course investment into agtech has fallen from the so-called “glory days” circa 2021, but Heraud remains optimistic that venture capital is an appropriate vehicle for agtech.
“The trick, as in all investments, is to pick the winners,” he says. “It’s very hard to do that, but it’s possible. Vinod Khosla, from Khosla Ventures, likes to remind people that his three investments in agriculture (Climate Corp, Granular and Blue River Technology) ALL did great.”
Blue River, he notes, generated almost 6X average returns for its investors.
As for Khosla’s recent investment into TerraBlaster, Heraud simply says, “I’ll do my absolute best to make sure his winning streak continues!”
From See & Spray to Measure & Apply
Currently, TerraBlaster enables farmers to measure the contents of their soil.
The bigger opportunity, says Heraud, is enabling them not only to measure but also to act on the information in real time.
“Depending on what you’re measuring, you can apply whatever is needed right then,” he explains. “Not as a separate task but as part of the planting path.”
For example, a farmer could apply nitrogen based on what they are measuring at the same time that the nitrogen is being applied. When done in-season, it can be very impactful, as the nitrogen is used by the plant immediately.
“If the soil is low in nitrogen, you apply a lot. However, if the soil has a lot of nitrogen already, you apply little or even none. Doing this maximizes yields and avoids waste and runoff. It avoids a lot of problems,” he says.
On a more personal level, TerraBlaster’s technology is a perfect follow-on to Blue River and See & Spray, which were all about applying the correct amount of herbicides in the right locations as you drive through the field.
“This is about applying the right amount and type of fertilizers based on real-time measurements,” he says. “So there are a lot of parallels, and I feel like I know the playbook. It fits me.”
