(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc. is licensing some technology from its agriculture startup Mineral to berry producer Driscoll’s Inc. as it winds down the nascent firm’s operations.

Mineral is one of the most prominent companies to emerge from Alphabet’s moonshot technology lab, X, the birthplace of inventions such as Google Glass and the artificial intelligence hub Google Brain. 

Last year, Mineral graduated from the lab and became an independent subsidiary of Alphabet. But it has struggled to find a sound business model in an industry with fierce competition and slim profit margins, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Mineral uses cameras and machine learning to help farmers make better decisions. It has been working with Driscoll’s over the past few years, providing large, unmanned rovers that trawl fields and snap pictures to help the growers better understand what’s happening on their land.

In recent months, as it became clear that Mineral didn’t have a future within Alphabet, employees have been trying to find a way to continue their work, according to three of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. Driscoll’s reached an agreement and more deals are in the works with industry players that Mineral has partnered with through the years, according to another person with knowledge of the matter.

“We are transferring our technology out to the agriculture ecosystem to maximize the impact of bringing our AI to agriculture,” Mineral wrote in a copy of a memo obtained by Bloomberg. “Mineral will no longer be an Alphabet company, and our technology will live on inside of leading agribusinesses where they can have maximum impact.”When Driscoll’s learned that Alphabet was changing course with Mineral, the berry producer was eager to find a way to keep using the technology, said Scott Komar, Driscoll’s senior vice president of global research and development. The company uses the startup’s technology to predict how many berries its crops will yield, which enables it to provide more accurate forecasts to its buyers and labor partners, Komar said.

“We were really disappointed that Alphabet decided to change directions,” Komar said. “We have really had a great partnership with the Mineral team and from our vantage point they were just getting takeoff altitude. And then all of a sudden, you know, plans changed.”

Komar declined to share financial terms of the deal, but said he believes the license grants Driscoll’s the right to use the technology in perpetuity. 

For most of X’s history, moonshots had aimed to graduate from the lab and become an Alphabet subsidiary, as self-driving car unit Waymo and life sciences company Verily have done. The lab has sought to address major challenges like climate change and connectivity, but its projects have so far yet to yield many viable businesses.Recently Alphabet has been making considerable changes to the structure of its the X lab, including eliminating dozens of employees and turning to outside investors to enable its projects to spin out as independent startups instead of being absorbed into Alphabet. Gideon Yu, the former chief financial officer of YouTube and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, is leading an effort to raise about $500 million for a fund affiliated with X that will invest in the spinouts, Bloomberg has reported.

Mineral was a poster child for X’s more recent approach to innovation, in which projects have focused on practical aims, such as harnessing data to address environmental issues. The company developed technology that it said could help farmers wield artificial intelligence to boost the yield of their crops amid climate change. It forged partnerships with industry stalwarts such as Driscoll’s, but struggled to translate such deals into durable revenue streams, according to one of the people.

The company also had to work to translate its technology beyond strawberries. The rover could maneuver fairly well around some other crops that grow low to the ground, such as soybeans and melons, and Mineral was in the process of adapting the technology for taller plants, such as corn, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Driscoll’s and Mineral were working on applying the technology to raspberries, which required both hardware and software changes, Komar said. 

Tidal, a moonshot within X whose aim is to protect the ocean and sustainably feed people, is also at a crossroads. Its founder and Chief Executive Officer Neil Davé left the company in March, according to his LinkedIn profile. Davé didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this year, management of X’s building, a sprawling former shopping center in Mountain View, California, transitioned from the lab to Google, according to another person familiar with the matter.

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