Kubota Corporation (Headquarters: Naniwa-ku, Osaka, Japan; President and Representative Director: Yuichi Kitao; hereinafter, "Kubota") announced today that it has invested in ListenField (Headquarters: Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Japan; Chief Executive Officer: Rassarin Chinnachodteeranun), a startup that develops farm management support services for farmers in Thailand and other countries.

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Background and investment rationale

• In 2019, with the aim of promoting open innovation through partnerships with external organizations, Kubota established its first Innovation Center in Japan. The company’s recent investments in startups have enabled Kubota to deepen its knowledge of advanced agritech, ecotechnology, and new business models, thereby accelerating development of innovative business solutions in the agriculture and water environment sectors.
• ListenField, in which Kubota has recently taken an equity stake, offers private farmers and agricultural corporations farm management support services that can be accessed via smartphones and other mobile devices. ListenField uses its proprietary platform to provide a wide range of services related to farm management, including data browsing of weather and soil conditions, and a chat tool for exchanging information with other farmers. The company has already acquired many users in Thailand through ListenField Thailand.
• Thailand is an agriculture-based country that boasts one of world’s highest export volumes of rice, but, due to geographical conditions, is regarded as an area that is prone to weather-related disasters, including droughts and floods. ListenField is developing crop cultivation models and highly accurate growth prediction algorithms through analyzing a wide variety of data relating to weather and soil profiles. ListenField aims to utilize these capabilities to develop services that can assist decision-making in farm management, such as suggesting to farmers optimal timings for planting and harvesting their crops. Kubota positions Southeast Asia as an important market. Kubota and ListenField will collaborate to co-develop path-breaking precision agriculture technology that will produce meaningful improvements in agricultural yield and economize on inputs for farmers in the countries of Southeast Asia.

About ListenField

Name	ListenField
Establishment	2017
Address	Nakamura-ku, Nagoya
Business	Provision of agricultural management support services

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