Nthing, a developer of Agriculture IoT (Internet of Things) that connects Plants to People has recently secured investment of US$1.7m (KRW 2b) from KDB Bank (Korea Development Bank). The aim for Nthing seems to be to connect all things ranging from ‘things to things’, ‘things to people’, and ‘people to people’. Their ‘plant to people’ connection solution is named Planty.

Planty is a neat pot for plants that is just 170mm high and 132mm high. The pot is able to hold approximately 500mL of water. The difference between Planty and other pots for plants is that Planty monitors the growth environments from water level, temperature, humidity and illumination. The critical factors that influence the livelihood of plants is transmitted through IoT back to a smart device.

Planty was first promoted on crowdfunding site Kickstarter back in April. Through Kickstarter, Nthing was able to raise more than US$80k (KRW 100m) to allow developments to commence.  Nthing also featured in beGLOBAL 2015’s top 20 startups in the annual ‘startup battle’. The company has also received positive feedback on it’s potential from Chinese startup accelerator Tri Beluga.

Kim Hae Yeon the representative from Nthing commented, “We are thankful for KDB Industry Bank in recognizing the potential for Agribusiness. Through this investment we plan to contribute towards mass production as well as focus on marketing and sales”.