This week’s Smart City roundup features an agricultural tech company’s solution for droughts, and two smart office solutions raising funds to expand their operations.

CropX delivers water management solution

According to a report from the World Resources Institute, food production must grow by 60 percent by 2050 to be able to support the needs of our ever-multiplying population. The problem with this scenario is that many regions are faced with droughts which impedes the production for food. To address this problem, agricultural analytics company CropX Ltd. has come up with a system of sensors to help farmers reduce crop water needs by as much as 25 percent.

Farmers will stick the CropX sensors in the soil to gather information such as topography, soil structure, and moisture and send that data to the cloud for analysis. An app installed in the farmer’s smartphone then receives recommendations regarding how much water a particular crop planted in a certain type of soil should get. This will percent over or under watering crops, which results in less water used.

“Feeding the world and solving the water crisis is humanity’s biggest challenge ever,” says CropX CEO Isaac Bentwich. “Taking techniques that work in life science or other segments and applying that to agriculture amounts to an IT revolution in agriculture. This is all exciting stuff.”

CropX has also recently raised $9 million in a Series A funding led by Finistere Ventures with the participation of Innovation Endeavors, GreenSoil Investments and the company’s earlier backers including OurCrowd.

Managed by Q raises $15M to expand operations

Smart office management service provider, Managed by Q, Inc., has raised $15 million in a Series A venture funding led by RRE Ventures with the participation of Greycroft Partners, Homebrew, Sherpa Ventures, SV Angel and Steadfast Financial as well as individual investors such as The Honest Co. founder and actress Jessica Alba, Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, and NBA Commissioner David Stern.

The round of funding will be used to expand the company’s operations across the U.S.

Managed by Q trains and manages those t be hired by various companies who need their offices cleaned or to help them stock up on supplies. The company will install an iPad to the office, which connects to the office’s Wi-Fi network. Using the iPad, an office manager can then create custom checklists such as identifying tasks to be accomplished during cleaning days as well as what supplies are needed for restock. The iPad can also be used to report concerns.

Envoy raises $15M for its visitor check-in app

Envoy, a platform that digitizes the office visitor check-in process, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz with its general partner Chris Dixon.

Envoy is an iPad app that allows visitors to check into office buildings effortlessly. Not only that, Envoy also allows visitors to sign non disclosure agreements, waivers, and agreements which means no more hard copies to be printed. The app also connects visitors to employees so visitors don’t have to track down employees when they arrive.

Envoy offers its basic service for $99 which includes unlimited sign-in, NDA signing, photos, badge printing and SMS and email notification. Higher services which are priced at $249 or $499 includes more features such as pre-registration, a security desk and custom badges.

Larry Gadea, former Google and Twitter Inc. engineer and creator of Envoy, came up with the idea for the platform while visiting large companies in Silicon Valley. Gadea noticed that many of these companies have their own digital sign-in process but for startups, the same cannot be said. Gadea wanted startups and small companies to have access to such a service — thus the birth of Envoy.

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