Epic Angels, the world’s largest female-only investor collective, has announced its continued investment in Living Roots, a Thailand-based agritech company building biological alternatives to synthetic fertiliser for tropical farming.
This is Epic Angels’ second investment in the company, following a 2025 bridge round backed by Epic Angels’ network of angel investors. Joining this round are returning and new angel investors from Epic Angels’ global collective. Funds will be used to expand the team, scale field deployment, and build out local manufacturing capacity.
A biological system built for tropical soils
Nearly all investment in agricultural biologicals to date has targeted temperate row crops in the United States and Europe, leaving tropical agriculture, which produces the majority of the world’s rice, palm oil, cassava and sugarcane, largely underserved. Living Roots was founded by Avika Narula and Abhi Agarwal, two computer scientists who moved from software engineering into farming in Thailand after encountering the effects of soil degradation firsthand.
Living Roots designs biological crop inputs, which it calls “crop protocols,” using its AI platform Hypha to adapt formulations by crop type, soil condition, and growth stage. The products are manufactured locally from regional feedstock and reach farmers through partnerships with agribusinesses, cooperatives, and food companies, rather than direct sales.
The company has deployed its products across more than 5,000 acres and works with more than 1,000 smallholder farmers in Thailand, India, and Indonesia, reporting average yield improvements of 25%-30% compared to conventional fertilizer programs for participating farmers.
“Epic Angels backed us when we were still proving the science worked in the field. Since then we have expanded into two new countries and started working with agribusinesses and enterprises across the global south, who reach far more farmers than we ever could on our own. Having Epic Angels come back for a second round tells us we are building the right thing, and this one lets us put our crop protocols in front of many more farmers,” says Avika Narula, co-founder and COO of Living Roots.
“Living Roots keeps proving that its science holds up outside the lab, and its partnership-led model lets it scale across Southeast Asia without needing to reach every farmer directly. We’re glad to back Avika and Abhi again as they take the business into its next stage of growth, and we look forward to supporting their growth by leveraging our global collective of investors,” says Hester Spiegel, Founding Partner of Epic Angels.
