Alphabet Shutters Mineral, Licenses Farming Tech to Driscoll’s

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 ...