The most critical data point on a modern farm isn't just the soil moisture or the satellite image of a blighted field. It’s knowing which worker is where, when they arrived, and what task they completed. For agricultural cooperatives managing hundreds of seasonal laborers across vast, remote plots, this operational blindness is a chronic, costly condition. RawData, a Barcelona-based startup founded in 2018, began by trying to treat the crop with AI. Its latest move suggests it’s now diagnosing the farm itself.
Founded by Albert Duaigües Manuel and David Olmo Pérez, both from agricultural families, RawData originated as a master’s project in Big Data. The initial product used satellite imagery and agrometeorological data to predict harvest timing, flag disease risks, and generate weather alerts for farmers, all without requiring them to install expensive IoT hardware [PERPLEXITY SONAR PRO BRIEF, retrieved 2024]. This provided a software-only wedge into farm management, solving a specific, high-friction decision point.
From Crop Health to Human Resources
Over eight years, that predictive engine has evolved into a broader operational platform. Today, RawData’s commercial emphasis has pivoted decisively toward workforce management, a reflection of the acute labor challenges in European agriculture [PERPLEXITY SONAR PRO BRIEF, retrieved 2024]. The platform now bundles its original crop analytics with tools for field-worker coordination, digital farm notebooks, cost analysis, and even a facial recognition time-clock application designed for outdoor use [agrawdata.com, retrieved 2026]. The bet is clear: by becoming the system of record for both the crop and the crew, RawData can anchor itself deeper into daily farm operations than a standalone analytics dashboard ever could.
The company’s traction, while concentrated in its home market, shows this integrated approach is gaining ground. From a reported base of over 100 customers in March 2023, RawData now serves approximately 300 agricultural production companies, most in Spain [Capital & Riesgo, March 2023] [Democrata, October 2026]. The team has scaled accordingly, growing to around 20 employees by 2023, with a mix of technologists and agricultural engineers [Capital & Riesgo, March 2023].
The Funding Trajectory of a Pragmatic Agtech
RawData’s funding history mirrors its gradual, use-case-led expansion. The company has raised capital in measured increments, each round supporting a step into a new layer of farm operations.
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2021 | Seed | €260,000 | Archipelago Next [Nordic 9, September 2021] |
| Mar 2023 | Seed | €500,000 | Archipelago Next [Capital & Riesgo, March 2023] |
| Oct 2026 | Seed | €1,070,000 | Swanlaab Innvierte Agrifood Tech Fund [Expansión, October 2026] |
The most recent €1 million infusion, closed in October 2026, is explicitly earmarked to accelerate this push into labor digitization and support initial internationalization efforts, particularly in Latin America where the company has early customers [Expansión, October 2026] [Democrata, October 2026].
The Risks in a Fragmented Field
For all its grounded growth, RawData’s path is not without its furrows. The agricultural software market, especially in Europe, is fragmented and often region-specific. While no direct competitors were named in the available sources, the space is crowded with point solutions for precision agronomy, farm ERP, and labor management. RawData’s success hinges on convincing farm managers that a single, integrated platform from a startup is superior to stitching together best-of-breed tools or relying on legacy systems.
Furthermore, the company’s reported metrics, while positive, lack the granularity that would signal enterprise-scale durability. The jump from 100 to 300 customers is meaningful, but the average contract value, renewal rates, and expansion motion within those accounts are not public. The reliance on facial recognition for timekeeping, while a clever adaptation for the sector, also introduces potential regulatory and privacy complexities that must be managed as the company scales.
What the Next Harvest Demands
The next twelve months will be a critical test of whether RawData’s integrated model can translate early adoption into durable growth. Key milestones to watch include the progress of its Latin American expansion, any announcements of partnerships with large agricultural cooperatives or distributors, and a potential move toward a Series A round to fuel further scaling.
The company’s evolution speaks to a fundamental truth in agricultural technology. The disease state here is operational inefficiency,a lack of visibility and coordination that wastes time, money, and resources across thousands of farms. The patient population is the agricultural business owner or cooperative manager, often tech-hesitant but painfully aware of rising costs and labor shortages.
The standard of care today remains a frustrating patchwork. It’s paper notebooks in pickup trucks, manual timesheets, disparate weather apps, and gut-feel harvest decisions. RawData’s ambition is to replace that dissonant chorus with a single, data-driven platform. Its journey from an AI crop model to a facial recognition clock is less a pivot and more a logical progression toward treating the whole farm, not just the plants in the ground.
Sources
- [PERPLEXITY SONAR PRO BRIEF, retrieved 2024] RawData company and product overview
- [Nordic 9, September 2021] RawData secures €260k from Archipelago Next, Startupxplore, StartupLabSpain and SeedRocket. | https://nordic9.com/news/rawdata-secures-c-from-archipelago-next-startupxplore-startuplabspain-and-seedrocket-news0887011397/
- [Capital & Riesgo, March 2023] La agtech RawData cierra una ronda de €500.000. Participan Archipelago Next, Fondo Bolsa Social, Startupxplore y business angels. | https://capital-riesgo.es/es/articles/la-agtech-rawdata-cierra-una-ronda-de-500-000-participan-archipelago-next-fondo-bolsa-social-startupxplore-y-business-angels-/
- [Expansión, October 2026] Swanlaab invierte un millón en RawData para acelerar la digitalización de la agricultura. | https://www.expansion.com/expansion-empleo/emprendedores/2026/10/22/swanlaab-invierte-millon-rawdata-acelerar-digitalizacion-agricultura.html
- [Democrata, October 2026] RawData captures a million to digitize the field. | https://www.democrata.es/en/agriculture-food/swanlaab-contributes-one-million-euros-to-rawdata-to-accelerate-the-digitalization-of-the-field/
- [agrawdata.com, retrieved 2026] RawData 14-day free trial: agricultural management software | https://agrawdata.com/en/book-rc-demo-6/