OMRON VENTURES Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Kyoto; Chief Executive Officer: Naoshi Ozawa) announced that it has invested in ORGANIC NICO CO., LTD. (Headquarters: Kyoto; President: Arata Nakamura) (hereinafter referred to as "ORGANIC NICO"). ORGANIC NICO is engaged in the production and marketing of vegetables through organic or natural farming, as well as development of agricultural production technology.

The basic mission of ORGANIC NICO is to contribute to the creation of a society that allows the Earth and its people to stay healthy. According to the company's philosophy, this can be achieved by maintaining a harmony among nature, people, and technology. Based on this, ORGANIC NICO aims to practice and spread organic farming with the world's highest level of productivity by making optimum use of the benefits that the soil and ecological system can provide. The company is also striving to develop and promote the use of an "Eco Greenhouse," which makes the fullest use of natural energy. By funding this company, OMRON VENTURES will seek to exploit ORGANIC NICO's system development capabilities built on the company's agricultural expertise and sensing technology. It intends to combine this with OMRON's core sensing and control technologies in order to drive innovation for agriculture-related business.

ORGANIC NICO promotes organic/natural farming, which rejects the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It mainly focuses on making healthy soil and ecological systems, avoiding excessive reliance even on organic fertilizers and pesticides of natural origin. Organic farming centered on soil-making currently represents a mere 0.4% of Japan's cultivable farmland. ORGANIC NICO's "2525 (pronounced "nico-nico" in Japanese) campaign" is intended to raise the share of organic agricultural products to 25% of the total market in Japan by 2025. With the aim of making organic farming a common practice, the company's name, ORGANIC NICO, also came from this campaign name.
The company is also engaged in the development of Eco Greenhouses, with the marketing launch of the mass-produced model scheduled for this autumn. This model's measurement control system employs OMRON programmable controllers, achieving labor saving and stable production through visualization of expert skills. This Eco Greenhouse model will also be exhibited at the 5th AGRITECH JAPAN exhibition of AGRI WORLD 2015, which will be held October 14-16 in Makuhari Messe near Tokyo. The exhibition is Japan's leading agricultural trade show, and provides valuable opportunities for business networking and negotiations.

By drawing on OMRON's technological strengths in the area of sensing and control, and through funding for startup ventures, OMRON VENTURES is devoted to nurturing venture firms intended to create new added value. Moreover, OMRON VENTURES will proactively work in partnerships with promising companies, as the company strives to help resolve social challenges around the world.