Justin Mast’s career took an unexpected turn after reading about a houseplant wired to a motorized stand. Intrigued by how electrical signals flowing through living tissue triggered a control board to move the plant toward light, Mast dove into the scientific literature. This discovery sparked the creation of Electric Plant, a startup helmed by Mast and neuroscientist Lee von Kraus, who has previously worked with DARPA.
Over the last three years, Electric Plant has collected extensive data to develop a large language model named Bombadil. This AI is designed to interpret the subtle electrical signals traveling through a plant’s stem, translating them into actionable information regarding the plant's requirements for growers. The founders envision a future where people can eventually "speak" to plants, though Mast notes that listening remains the immediate priority.
To commercialize its sensors and Bombadil, Electric Plant recently secured an $11.2 million seed round led by Onto Ventures and Climactic. Mast argues that even in controlled environments, growers lack full visibility into plant needs. Traditional methods like soil probes and satellite imagery, while useful, often fail to capture the plant’s real-time internal state.
Electric Plant utilized these existing technologies to train Bombadil, which is currently capable of interpreting electrical signals across more than 125 different species. The startup offers sensors significantly cheaper than current equipment, costing only tens of dollars. These devices, roughly the size of a folded iPhone, attach to the plant by penetrating the cambium layer with stainless steel screws to detect microvolt changes.
Data from these sensors is transmitted wirelessly to a base station and interpreted by the AI in the cloud. Mast claims the system only requires a couple of sensors per acre to provide accurate results. Customers can use this data to optimize watering and fertilizer schedules, with Mast asserting the technology can boost yields while reducing water consumption by over 20%. While Mast declined to name initial customers, applications in agriculture and forestry seem likely. Bombadil has been trained on a diverse range of species, from ferns and redwoods to tomatoes and dahlias. Mast emphasized that this represents the most diverse model of biological electrical signals ever created, surpassing capabilities currently seen in the animal world.
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