CeresAI, a data and analytics provider for the agricultural sector, lenders, and insurers, will pursue a Series E round and its first acquisitions ahead of a hoped-for public listing at the USD 100m annual recurring revenue mark, said CEO Ramsey Masri.

The E round will be in the range of USD 30m-USD 40m with an expected 2Q25 closing. CeresAI will target strategic investors with experience in ag-tech, insurance and agriculture infrastructure, the executive told this news service. There are no plans to engage a banker for the raise or to solicit private equity for the round, he said.

After the round, CeresAI could look at acquisitions. It is speaking with “several clever companies” engaged in risk modeling and data aggregation in areas such as crop yield and weather, with revenue in the USD 1m-USD 4m range, Masri said.

Oakland, California-based CeresAI, formerly called Ceres Imaging, has raised USD 85m to date, he said, most recently a Series D of undisclosed size announced 4 September and led by Remus Capital.

CeresAI is not yet profitable and expects to generate ARR of more than USD 17m in 2025 and as much as USD 100m by the end of 2028 thanks to a wider customer base, he said. At that size, an IPO based on a valuation of 10x ARR, which he said “is not atypical” for SaaS software companies, would value the business at USD 1bn.

Masri, who became CEO in 2022, has a background in farming and has worked at eight previous software-as-a-service businesses. He is leading the company’s transformation from a focus on small- and medium-sized farms as customers for aerial spectral imagery data, to a provider of data and analytics to agribusiness, insurers and lenders.

“This is the ninth software company that I’ve worked with, and I typically come in with the mandate to restructure, rebuild, relaunch and recapitalize,” Masri said. “And if you look back, all but one has exited in some way, shape or form.” Most recently, Masri was COO of Zendrive which in 2022 spun out its vehicle insurance platform, Fairmatic, for which he was managing director.

CeresAI says it has collected more than 12 billion unique plant-level data points from 40 different crop types across four continents, offering field-level agronomic insights.

“Agricultural financial services is one of the last great vestiges of pen and paper,” the CEO said. “They need to shift to the digital world, and they know this.”

In 2020, company founder Ashwin Madgavkar, who is no longer with CeresAI, told Mergermarket the company’s competitors included TerrAvion, which has since ceased operations and whose technology was acquired by Israel-based AgroScout; Intelinair, which in 2023 acquired Aker Technologies; and PrecisionHawk, which was acquired by Norway-based Field Group in 2023.

Cooley LLP provides legal services. CeresAI does not work with an outside accounting firm.