Farming startup Indigo raises $203 million with help from Dubai fund

Farming technology startup Indigo has raised more than $200 million from investors to fund its efforts to reform how crops including wheat, soybeans, cotton and corn are grown around the world.The Boston-based company announced on Wednesday an additional $47 million investment led by the Investment Corporation of Dubai, a state-owned sovereign wealth fund, bringing its latest financing round to $203 million. Indigo is valued after the latest round at $1.4 billion. The financing is one of the largest single investments into a private agriculture-technology company. It rivals SoftBank Group Corp’s investment into Plenty, a startup working on new technology to grow crops indoors, announced in July. That investment, from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, was $200 million.Indigo says it is working to create a new way to grow crops so they are more resistant to insects, drought, severe weather and nutrient-poor soil. The company says its formula of coating seeds in microbes will one day help crops to withstand environmental stresses and allow farmers to forgo chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides.