DUBAI- The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Co (SALIC) has led a round of investments for artificial intelligence startup Hummingbird Technologies, the company said on Thursday.

Hummingbird, which was set up in 2016, uses drone and arificial intellgence to provide advanced crop analytics to farmers.

The funding round was worth 7 million pounds ($8.84 million), SALIC said in a statement, without disclosing how much it had invested.

SALIC is owned the kingdom's sovereign investor Public Investment Fund. ($1 = 0.7915 pounds)

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar, editing by Davide Barbuscia) ((Saeed.Azhar@thomsonreuters.com; +971 44536787; Reuters Messaging: saeed.azhar.reuters.com@reuters.net))