Founded in 2001 by a pair of Stanford grads, Blue River Technology is using that money to develop an alternative to chemical-intensive agriculture, which is both labor intensive (even with all that spraying fields still need to be weeded) and environmentally toxic.
For decades farmers had been spraying Roundup on the ground before planting, killing all leafy weeds in its path with a chemical that conveniently broke down in the soil, so it wouldn't poison crops planted later.