March 2, 2011 | Robert Puro

In a positive development for venture investment in sustainable agricultural technology, Google Ventures along with Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Index Ventures, and Allen & Co. invested $42 million in WeatherBill, a company that provides a unique technology platform that enables the real-time pricing and purchasing of customizable weather insurance using proprietary global weather simulation modeling and local weather monitoring systems.  The company protects the $3 trillion global agriculture industry from the financial impact of adverse weather – the cause of over 90% of crop loss – with fully automated weather insurance products.  In reference to Khosla Ventures participation in this round of investment on DealBook, Vinod Khosla stated that “I realize that agriculture is an unusual area for venture capital, but I would submit that agricultural technology has the same potential in agriculture as biotechnology had in pharmaceuticals or chip technology had in telecommunications.”