Miku Jha’s affinity for agriculture started with mango trees. Although raised in Mumbai, Jha came from four generations of farmers. As a little girl, she grew up surrounded by the family’s main staple – mangos. Jha, 39, said what she learned on the family farm was priceless.

“I was looking at daily challenges and how things could be improved,” said Jha. “I kind of always had this feeling that we can put technology into changing certain things, and (using it) to improve this whole ag ecosystem especially for small and medium commercial farms.”

— Excerpt from profile published Feb. 16, 2017

On any given day, Diane Wu and Poornima Parameswaran can be found on the farm, in the lab or inside the agtech incubator in Salinas. Their venture combines all three aspects.

Trace Genomics, launched in 2015 as a microbial evaluation system to detect diseases in soil. emerged in the Salinas Valley a year ago when it won the 2016 THRIVE Accelerator competition beating out 10 other finalists out of a pool of 200 applications from 36 countries.

Founded by Wu and Parameswaran, two young Ph.D.s from Stanford University ...

Excerpts from a profile of HeavyConnect Co-founder Jessica Gonzalez and Rivka Garcia, front-end developer. Published Feb. 15, 2017:

Three years later, PastureMap is well on its way to success. Last April, the product officially launched to 5,000 ranchers in 50 states and 26 countries.  In 2016, the company raised over $1 million.