Geosys is a wholly owned subsidiary of Land O’Lakes and is a global digital agriculture company that provides clients with data, analysis and insights that help with risk management and precision farming support.
It is being sold to Vancouver-based UrtheCast, a corporation that serves the geospatial and geo-analytics markets by distributing imagery data from their two earth observation satellites.
Land O’Lakes believes the deal will bring “unprecedented value to agribusinesses worldwide through the enhanced relationship between imagery data and geoanalytical solutions.”
UrtheCast will own Geosys' software for accessing, processing, cataloging and retrieving of images. Land O'Lakes will still own all intellectual property connected to its R7 Tool and farm-gate applications.
Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O'Lakes, said, "At Land O'Lakes, we are constantly looking for the best ways to provide long-term support to our member-owners and our customers. This transaction will enhance our proprietary R7 Tool's ability to identify the right places for farmers to make incremental in-season input investments to drive yields and profitability – in real time."
The first closing of the deal is expected for November 6, 2018 with the full transaction to be completed in over the next two years.
Donald Osborne, CEO of UrtheCast, said, "This important acquisition would bring together the best-in-class imagery capabilities of UrtheCast with the proven geoanalytics power and deep agribusiness industry relationships of Geosys. By unifying these companies, UrtheCast will be well positioned as the leader in fully integrated geoanalytics solutions for the agribusiness industry.”