👋 Happy Friday — coffee in hand, ledger open. This week's recap runs heavy on paperwork: a seed business spun off, a transatlantic carbon-software merger, and a $240 million pump deal all closed within days of each other, with energy, water and agriculture each getting a turn. About a 4-minute read.

Our latest premium edition, Thin Harvest, found agriculture funding cooling sharply in August: $670 million moved through 25 funding actions, down roughly 65% from July's $1.89 billion, as debt facilities and government programs — not venture rounds — carried most of the month's capital. It's the full deal-by-deal breakdown, pulled straight from the iGrow Intelligence database.

Corteva's board signed off on the long-planned separation of its seed business into a new independent company, Vylor, clearing the way for an October 1 split into two publicly traded agriculture firms. Vylor confirmed its hybrid wheat platform remains on track for a 2027 launch, projecting $500 million in North America wheat revenue by 2035 and $1 billion by 2040, while a parallel push into next-generation soybean traits targets another $500 million in incremental revenue on the same timeline.

Why it matters: splitting seed from crop protection gives each business room to negotiate — and get acquired — on its own terms. BASF's own move to mandate banks for a mid-2027 IPO of its Agricultural Solutions unit this week suggests Corteva isn't the only one betting the market rewards focus over scale.

Greenly and Normative agreed to merge, combining two of Europe's better-funded carbon-accounting platforms into what the companies call the world's largest climate software provider — consolidation in a carbon-software market that's had more entrants than paying customers.

Crane Company struck a deal to acquire Trillium Pumps US from First Reserve-backed Trillium Flow Technologies for $240 million, adding engineered pump manufacturing and aftermarket service work to its flow-control lineup.

NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy sweetened the benefits package tied to their proposed combination, pledging 1,000 new Virginia jobs, long-term bill relief for residential customers and a shareholder-funded co-headquarters tower in Richmond — a bid to win regulators over before the deal closes.

IDEXX Laboratories agreed to acquire CoVetAI, whose AI-native ambient-listening tools cut down on paperwork for veterinary practices across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand; CoVetAI co-founder Yannick Bloem will stay on to help fold the technology into IDEXX's diagnostic and software lineup.

Elsewhere, the M&A ledger stayed busy: Ara Partners picked up a majority stake in design consultancy Bryden Wood, ZenaTech closed its 29th Drone-as-a-Service acquisition with land surveyor Merritt Paul Land Surveying, Commonwealth Electrical Technologies acquired Horton Electrical Services to nearly double its Northeast workforce, and Xpansiv agreed to buy Australian renewable-certificate platform Formbay.

BFG Supply Co., the 54-year-old horticulture and lawn-and-garden distributor that filed Chapter 11 in August alongside 16 affiliates, set an auction date to sell off its remaining assets. Nature's Miracle Holding also agreed to divest its grow-light subsidiary, Visiontech Group, to an undisclosed buyer, saying the move lets it focus on its AI-related business lines instead.

Beyond Mazama's $135 million geothermal raise, agriculture biologicals drew its own big check: Robigo closed a Series A led by Leaps by Bayer, with Illumina Ventures, SVG Thrive, Congruent Ventures and Endeavor8 joining, to advance engineered biological crop protection. Energy-infrastructure startup Branch Energy raised $33 million in a Series B led by Piva Capital and Clean Energy Ventures to push its rapid AI-power systems into new markets, lithium recycler RecycLiCo made a strategic investment in fusion developer Type One Energy Group, and Westport Fuel Systems lined up a $25 million committed equity facility with Roth Principal Investments. Smaller checks rounded out the week — Next Hydrogen picked up $2 million from Natural Resources Canada, COnovate landed a $1.25 million DOE contract for graphite-alternative battery anodes, and water-intelligence startup GroundWorx opened a Wefunder round to fund its predictive environmental platform.

ENGIE North America agreed to supply more than 500 MW of renewable power to Oracle's Texas data centers, while Hitachi Energy said it will spend $528 million on a new transformer factory in Gallman, Mississippi, expected to create 700-plus jobs as it doubles US transformer capacity. NOVVA Group locked in a 3.17 GW renewable portfolio from ABO Energy to power AI infrastructure. Nuclear kept its own momentum: Centrus Energy signed Antares to a multi-year HALEU supply deal, newcleo's SPAC merger with NewHold Investment Corp. III cleared its shareholder vote, and PTAG joined the Texas Nuclear Alliance as the state's $350 million nuclear push gathers members.

Vortex Companies expanded into the Northeast by acquiring rehabilitation contractor CLH & Son, and Illinois American Water completed its purchase of Venice, Illinois's wastewater system, with $2.6 million in upgrades planned over the next five years. On the funding side, GroundWorx turned to Wefunder to back its predictive water-intelligence platform, and the State Coastal Conservancy approved a $42 million grant to help permanently protect California's Wild Cherry Canyon watershed.

Robigo's new Series A wasn't the only sign of activity in the field this week: Jaylor rolled out three new TMR mixer models, TSRgrow added Metrc compliance tracking to its GROWHub cultivation software, and Central Life Sciences introduced a customizable grain-protection protocol for stored grain. In controlled-environment agriculture, BKCC made its European debut in Hasselt, Belgium, and Gotham Greens added a new Chief Commercial Officer as part of a broader push into national growth.

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