The Rijen-based startup, which enhances existing sprayers with nozzle-by-nozzle PWM control, plans to use the funds to commercialize its LeapEye camera system and expand LeapBox internationally, from Europe to Canada.
BBLeap’s concept is straightforward: most agricultural sprayers treat an entire field uniformly, applying the same dose of pesticide, herbicide, or fertilizer regardless of individual plant needs.
BBLeap believes this approach is wasteful, imprecise, and unnecessary, asserting that the technology for improvement has been available long enough to justify its use.
The Dutch startup in Rijen, North Brabant, has secured €5 million led by Utrecht-based private equity firm ESquare Capital, with support from Yield Lab Europe, an impact-driven agri-food venture capital fund backed by the European Investment Fund.
Existing investors, including BOM (the Brabant Development Agency, an early supporter) and Beheermaatschappij Vriend, also contributed. The capital will complete the commercial launch of LeapEye, its camera detection system for arable farming, and expand LeapBox internationally, adding Canada to its presence in Europe and Australia.
BBLeap was founded in 2019 by Peter Millenaar, Rieks Kampman, and Martijn van Alphen, all with backgrounds in agricultural machinery and previous experience at a sprayer manufacturer. CEO Millenaar describes the mission as “Farming on Plant Level,” providing each plant exactly the necessary dose rather than averaging across a field.
The core product, LeapBox, is a modular pulse-width modulation (PWM) system retrofitted onto any sprayer regardless of brand or age, controlling each nozzle independently to maintain constant pressure, droplet size, and precise volume.
LeapSpace, a cloud-based platform, manages high-resolution prescription maps from drone, satellite, and sensor data.
LeapEye extends capability into real-time detection: a broadacre camera scanning crops as the sprayer moves, identifying needed treatments, and adjusting nozzle output accordingly.
This reportedly enables chemical reductions between 20% and 99% depending on application, with up to 40% capacity increase. These figures are from the company and not independently verified.
The technology recently received independent validation from Germany’s Julius Kühn Institute (JKI), the federal research center for crop protection, marking a significant endorsement in the European agricultural market.
The company claims over 200 users of BBLeap systems across Europe and Australia, with a launch underway in Canada. These user and regional claims are from press materials and haven’t been independently confirmed.
Partnership breadth is documented: BBLeap collaborated with precision farming data platform OneSoil, enabling farmers to convert satellite prescription maps into BBLeap spray jobs within minutes, and established relationships with sprayer manufacturers such as Danish company Dammann.
“BBLeap provides 100% assurance for spraying exactly what’s needed, delivering effective applications with fewer diseases and weeds, using significantly fewer chemicals,” stated Peter Millenaar in an announcement.
The investment comes amid increasing regulatory pressure on agricultural chemical usage in Europe. The EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy aims to halve pesticide use by 2030, with precision spraying technologies offering cleaner paths to that goal without sacrificing yield.
For BBLeap, the challenge is turning a technology proven in field trials and with early adopters into a commercially viable product that can be sold, installed, and supported at the scale investors are betting on.