The Omdena “AI Adoption Leaders Series” comprises game-changing startups, stories, and thought-leadership pieces from leading impact ventures solving real-world problems.

The series is initiated by Omdena´s top talent program for impact-driven startups.

In this blog post, we highlight 15 inspiring and innovative precision agriculture companies (up to Series A) that are making a tangible change in the AgTech space using cutting-edge technologies such as AI and machine learning. As part of the series, we interviewed several companies on “How they measure the impact of their products and services”, which answers you can find in their respective company profiles.

What is precision agriculture, and why is it important?

Precision agriculture is a modern farming technology that leverages data and analytics to maximize crop yield and improve efficiency. This technology is used to collect data such as soil properties, weather patterns, and crop health from an array of sensors, which allows farmers to make decisions and take action quickly. 

By leveraging precision agriculture, farmers can achieve higher yields, lower input costs, and greater environmental sustainability.

Additionally, with the help of top precision agriculture companies as highlighted in this blog post, and precision farming technology companies, farmers can  access detailed data-driven insights which allow them to make informed decisions and optimize their farming operations. The benefits of precision agriculture are wide-ranging and provide a tremendous opportunity for farmers around the world to increase yields and reduce costs.

Why is social and environmental impact measurement important? What is the connection to profit?

When it comes to social impact measurement, most thinking focuses on civil society organizations, non-profit or ESG, and CSR initiatives of large corporations. However, startups play a crucial role in making a real impact due to their agile working style when it comes to tangible impact measurement. 

For example, OECD developed this policy brief on strategies and policies to scale the social impact of social enterprises. It was produced within a multiannual cooperation between the LEED programme of the OECD and the Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion of the European Commission. The policy brief begins by explaining what a social enterprise is and what scaling means in the context of social enterprises. It then compares the scaling patterns of social enterprises and conventional enterprises, looking at social impact vs. profit maximization, the types of goods and services involved, and stakeholder relations. 

Profit and impact can be mutually inclusive. Many Precision Ag companies strive to maintain a positive relationship with their customers based on trust and transparency. By demonstrating a commitment to ethical practices, such as fair wages and safe working conditions, precision farming companies can create long-term customer loyalty, leading to increased sales and repeat business. Even more, high-impact, high-profit precision Agtech companies understand how the “triple bottom line” works—making profits while remaining socially responsible and environmentally conscious is important. 

The connection between impact investing and startups

Dozens of industries create a positive impact, such as healthcare, inclusive media, energy, and many more. 

Precision Agriculture is an excellent example of an industry where profit can be increased while making a substantial environmental impact. According to European Parliamentary Research Service (Europarl), as PCs, the internet, and smartphones have changed our lives in so many ways, Precision Agriculture will do the same to rural communities by initiating new business models. These advances are meant to make tasks easier, improving the quality of life for people who work hard every day. Precision Agriculture (PA) has the potential to reduce the gender pay gap and free up time for farmers. Still, it also risks seasonal workers who rely on agricultural work. New business models are emerging here to explore what the farming industry could look like with the help of PA, but only 25% of EU farms currently use PA technologies. The EU could promote PA to the next generation of farmers and put the appropriate infrastructure in place to increase uptake. Still, different Member States have varying factors that present a challenge for policymakers.

Also, more and more impact-driven funds are being launched.  

For example, Human Impact Capital (HIC), Germany’s first dedicated social impact VC fund. The fund will deploy cash into digital business models focusing on health, education, and “living” and explicitly invests to having an impact along sustainable development goals. To HIC, this means “No Poverty, Good Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Gender Equality, and Reduced Inequalities.”

Other funds focusing on impact investing are the European Institute of Innovation (EII), and Technology, some of the startups currently making changes in precision agriculture worldwide under the umbrella of EII are GetBoarded Technologies (Portugal), Revolab (Lithuania), OPTIFOOD (Slovenia), Omnio (Bulgaria), Evelon (Portugal), RestPay (Poland), Vision Anchor (Slovenia) among others.

15 Rising Precision Agriculture Companies Making a Real-World Impact

1. Agrosmart

Headquarters: Campinas, São Paulo

Founded: 2014

Founder(s): Mariana Vasconcelos

Description: Agrosmart is a Brazilian company founded in 2014 that serves more than 100,000 producers and 48 million hectares in 9 countries in Latin America. Through technology and design, the company provides a climate intelligence platform with crop monitoring solutions via sensors, satellite images, digital field notebooks, and other applications that generate agronomic and climate models integrated with different data sources.

Applications and projects: 

• BoosterPRO | Climate monitoring and irrigation management:

BoosterPRO is a climate intelligence platform that brings together the primary data, information, and indications for your crop. Agrosmart BoosterPRO helps more than 100,000 producers in Latin America make safer and more proactive decisions in their daily lives.

2. Stenon

Headquarters: Potsdam, Brandenburg

Founded: 2018

Founder(s): Niels Grabbert and Dominic R.

Description: Sending soil samples to laboratories is a thing of the past. Thanks to Stenon’s sensor technology farmers can now analyze their soil as often as they like and get immediate results. Instant access to soil data helps optimize soil health and overall crop performance.

Applications and projects: 

• Laboratory Independent Real-Time Soil Analysis

With the sensor technology from Stenon, farmers can analyze soil as often as they like and receive immediate results. Instant access to their soil data will help farmers optimize their soil health and overall cultivation.

3. Instacrops

Headquarters: Santiago, Chile

Founded: 2015

Founder(s): Mario Andrés Bustamante Bernucci 

Description: Instacrops is a full-stack platform that integrates and packages IoT, satellite, and drones technologies for giving real-time recommendations for farmers using ML and AI.

Applications and projects: 

• InstaFrost: This is a frost alert service that predicts ambient temperature and occurrence of frost from agroclimatic records captured by Instacrops stations: InstaWeather Standard / Plus and InstaSoil Temp / Plus.

• InstaWell: The complete solution to monitor and control deep wells, in accordance with the DGW 1238 Standard.

• InstaWeather: This is the weather station that brings together all the essential agroclimatic parameters to monitor the temperatures of your field.

• InstaSoil: With this, farmers can monitor the soil moisture of their crop to manage the time and frequency of irrigation efficiently.

• InstaFlow: This is a controller that is connected directly to the irrigation shed in order to track, program, and control water flows easily and remotely.

• SkyCrops: This is a diagnostic tool that gives updated information on your crops through drones or satellite images.

• CROP ADVISOR: With the INSTACROPS technology deployed on the farms, they collect minute-by-minute data to gather relevant information for decision-making.

How do you define and, possibly, measure impact at Instacrops?

Instacrops is a unique virtual advisor that directly connects farmers with their crops through a powerful platform that gives previously processed information, easy to interpret and in real-time, to manage everything that happens in the field. Our technology, allows farmers to save up to 35% water and 30% energy, and maximize their crop yields by 12%.

Today we have 1,200+ users connected to our platform, and 80,000+ hectares monitored in Latin America.

Our mission is to keep developing innovative solutions to help farmers to produce more and better food for the planet.

By 2026, our purpose is to transform the life of 5,000+ farmers in Latin America, to save more than 2.5 billion gallons of water.

4. Augmenta

Headquarters: Paris, Ile-de-France

Founded: 2017

Founder(s): George Varvarelis and Dimitri (Jim) Evangelopoulos

Description: Augmenta are on the mission of changing Agriculture by “smartly” automating the most critical agricultural operations, driving down costs, and improving crop performance.

Applications and projects: 

• Augmenta Mantis: An accessible and compatible solution, which is easy to install on all of the most common setups. Payback in a fraction of other solutions. It fine-tunes farmers preexisting RX or purely applies VRA as you go.

• In-cabin tablet application: This is used for initial setup and for conveniently starting your in-season Live VRA applications with just a few taps. The tablet interface enables the visualization of the application of farmers’ agronomic recommendations, in real-time as you drive, section by section.

• Augmenta Web Portal: The Augmenta web portal gives you access to complete reports including plant health statistics, snapshots from specific fields and/or applications along with visualization of the savings status in detail.

• Augmenta LiveVRA: The continuously evolving portfolio of Augmenta LiveVRA Services enables farmers to variable rates on their recommendation of maximum dosage, based on the real-time reading of the canopy’s health.

5. Intello Labs

Headquarters: Gurgaon, Haryana

Founded: 2016

Founder(s): Nishant Mishra, Milan Sharma, Himani Shah

Description: Intello Labs does the quality assessment of food commodities using computer vision and AI. They help food businesses (growers, traders, retailers, food service companies, exporters, etc.) improve their customer satisfaction and cut down losses.

Applications and projects:

• Intello FlowStar: Intello FlowStar is a packing machine designed to eliminate food business challenges, from high SKUs to manual labor.  Extremely adaptable and fast, the packing machine weighs and packs 40+ different types of fruits and vegetables. 

• Intello FruitSort: FruitSort represents a revolution in automatic fruit sorting machines. The configurable machine comes with integrated lighting and cameras that rotate 360 degrees, so no part of the fruit surface goes undetected.

• Intello Sort: This configurable, automated machine physically segregates fruits and vegetables for growers, packers, aggregators, traders, retailers, and processors. Built for multiple commodities, it sorts based on size, color, and visual defects.

• IntelloPack: IntelloPack gives precision packing driven by intelligence. An automated weighing and packing machine for fresh produce, it is distinguishable for its compact size. 

• IntelloGrade: IntelloGrade is a next-generation grading machine. Powered by the ingenuity of AI, it combines sensors with data-driven analysis to gives a crystal clear picture of every nut or spice.

• Intello Track: An app that helps gain greater control over quality processes, driving accuracy, consistency, & collaboration.

• Intello ShelfEye: Intello ShelfEye helps automates dark stores, online fresh produce and mealkit quality processes with AI to cut superfluous costs, enhance operations, and delight customers

6. Plantix

Headquarter: Berlin, Germany

Founded: 2015

Founder(s): Simone Strey and Rob Strey

Description: Plantix is the world’s most downloaded app for farmers – combining artificial intelligence and the expertise of leading research institutions around the globe.

Applications and projects: 

• Plantix Magic App:Plantix turns farmers’ Android phones into a mobile crop doctor with which they can accurately detect pests and diseases on crops within seconds. Plantix serves as a complete solution for crop production and management.

How do you define and, possibly, measure impact at Plantix?

We at Plantix want to connect small-scale farmers and suppliers in one digital ecosystem with customized solutions, reliable products, and trusted services. In the last 12 months, over 5.5 million farmers have used the Plantix app very actively throughout the year – our goal of reaching 6 million by the end of 2022 is within reach.

During this period, the Plantix app has provided well over 30 million pieces of qualified advice to its farmers

By creating this digital ecosystem, Plantix has been able to make a strong positive impact:

Environmentally:

• 33.6M acres of crops have been saved
• The misuse of 2,1000 tonnes of pesticides have been avoided

Economically:

• 90% of farmers report an improvement in their farming practices
• 80% say the amount of crops that died has decreased
• 50% report decreased household expenditures
• and 80% report improvement in their quality of life

7. BharatAgri

Headquarters: Karnataka, India

Founded: 2017

Founder(s): Krishna Tanmay, Sai Gole, Aman Verma, and Siddharth Dialani

Description: BharatAgri is a farming technology platform where they work with farmers and full agriculture value chain directly. The company’s mission is to bridge the gap between technology and agriculture in India with a vision to reach out to 140 Million Indian farmers.

Applications and projects: 

• Personalized farm solutions and products with the BharatAgri website. 

How do you define and, possibly, measure impact at BharatAgri?

BharatAgri was conceptualized with the mission of increasing farmers’ incomes.

We measure our impact with two metrics – an increase in production and a reduction in cost. To date, 90,000+ farmers have purchased BharatAgri subscriptions for 200,000+ acres.

BharatAgri users have seen a 30% increase in production and a 10% reduction in costs.

8. TartanSense

Headquarters: Bangalore, Karnataka, India. 

Founded: 2015

Founder(s): Jaisimha Rao, Arha Padman

Description: TartanSense is a Bangalore based Agri-tech company centered on AI, Computer Vision, and Robotics, revolutionizing the way farming is undertaken in India and the world.

Applications and projects: 

• Tartan BladeRunner: A tractor-pulled Mechanical Weeder

• Tartan 3S (Sustainable Spot Spraying Technology): Tartan 3S Technology is a one-stop solution to mitigate the perils of blanket spraying. It can spray pesticides directly on the foliage of the plants without wastefully spraying on the soil saving up to 60% chemical usage.

9. OneSoil

Headquarters: Zurich

Founded: 2017

Founder(s): Usevalad Henin, Slava Mazai, and Sasha Yakovlev

Description: OneSoil is a Swiss company with headquarters in Zurich and research and development across Europe that develops precision farming apps based on satellite images and machine learning technologies. The OneSoil free app is used by more than 300K farmers worldwide, with around 5% of the world’s arable land (56M+ hectares/ 135M+ acres) added to the app by its users. The company’s data processing algorithms enable access to field insights in real-time, making it an important data source for farmers, various companies, non-profits, researchers, and international organizations.

Applications and projects:

• OneSoil App: The OneSoil app helps remotely monitor crops, increase yields, and reduce seed and fertilizer costs. 

How do you define and, possibly, measure impact at OneSoil?

Data-driven precision farming is the future of agriculture. At OneSoil, we make precision farming as simple and valuable as possible for farmers.

Our precision farming program, OneSoil Yield, helps farmers maximize the yield based on the productivity zones of each field. With OneSoil Yield, we save farmers time and money and increase the profitability of their businesses by analyzing satellite imagery with OneSoil’s machine-learning algorithms.

Thanks to OneSoil Yield, one of Ukraine’s top 10 agricultural holdings, IMC, was able to save 200 tons of fertilizer during an agricultural crisis due to the war. During the previous season, they made $300,000 thanks to OneSoil Yield precision farming technology, and during the war, the same technology helped them optimize resources.

Thus, OneSoil Yield is a solution that has a tremendous positive impact on farm profitability, on business flexibility in times of crisis, and on the planet: excess fertilizer and chemicals no longer create greenhouse gases or contaminate groundwater. Data-driven precision farming has a win-win impact both on business and the environment.

10. Arable

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

Founded: 2014

Founder(s): Adam Wolf

Description: Arable’s ground-truth data, powerful agronomic models, and intuitive design help businesses across the ag and food value chain optimize decisions, improve efficiency, and deliver greater levels of sustainability.

Applications and projects:

• Sensing and monitoring: Infield sensing and data capture have never been easier, more complete, or more reliable. Arable system help collect ground-truth data in real-time from the field on weather, soil, and crop response all in one place and start making more confident decisions.

• Data Analytics and Integration: Arable Analytics transforms highly accurate, localized data harvested from the field into actionable insights and alerts for easy consumption on the devices of your choosing.

11. Arugga

Headquarters: Kfar Monash, Isreal

Founded: 2017

Founder(s): Iddo Geltner, Eytan Heller

Description: Arugga is developing and manufacturing autonomous ground robots which will treat and monitor individual plants in the greenhouse. 

Applications and projects:

• Arugga Polly: Equipped with cameras and AI-based computer vision, the Arugga Polly robot recognizes flowers ready for pollination. This air-pressure mechanism then applies calibrated air pulses to the selected flower.

12. AGRIVI

Headquarters: London, England

Founded: 2013

Founder(s): Matija Zulj And Roger Blott

Description: AGRIVI is one of the leading global AgTech companies with a vision to change the way food is produced, positively impact over a billion people.  The AGRIVI approach to solving the global food problem is through the digitalization of agriculture, that is, by switching the farmer’s decision-making reliant on traditional practices and historical knowledge to the new data-driven and fact-based decision-making empowered by best-growing practices and real-time agronomic insights available using technology. 

Applications and projects:

AGRIVI 360: Comprehensive and all-encompassing insight into crop production management with leading farm management software for farmers, food processing companies, and other agri-food value chain stakeholders.

• Farm Insights: Easy-to-Use Farm Management Software

• Farm Enterprise: Comprehensive Farm Management Platform

• Farm Advisory: Advisory Farm Management Platform

• Agriculture Supply Chain: Supply Chain Management Platform

AGRIVI loT: Real-time insights into field data, from micro-climate and soil conditions to farm machinery fleet monitoring.

• IoT Meteo: Agricultural Meteo Stations

• IoT Soil: Agricultural Soil Sensors

• IoT Fleet: Fleet Management Platform

13. BeeHero

Headquarters: California

Founded: 2017

Founder(s): Itai Kanot, Omer Davidi, and Yuval Regev

Description: BeeHero is a developer of a beehive technology platform intended to maximize crop yields through pollination. The company’s technology uses artificial intelligence with low-cost sensors to collect in-hive data and to stimulate full output potential during peak pollination cycles, enabling farmers to protect beehives from colony collapse and maximize pollination efficiency for growers around the world.

Applications and projects:

• BeeHero Beekeeper App: Farmers can be everywhere with unprecedented data-driven oversight of their entire operation, from real-time colony health insights to pollination activity. 

How do you define and, possibly, measure impact at BeeHero?

• Inadequate pollination threatens our ability to feed a growing population.
• BeeHero uses IoT sensors to collect hive data and then analyzes the resulting data set with AI and ML.
• BeeHero leverages this data on hive strength to deliver Precision Pollination to commercial crop growers.
• Precision Pollination is critical to generate more productivity from each acre, which is at the heart of Sustainable Agriculture.

14. Wefarm

Headquarters: London, England

Founded: 2015

Founder(s): Kenny Ewan

Description: Wefarm is a farmer-to-farmer digital network that enables farmers to share information via SMS. The company allows small-scale farmers to connect with one another to solve problems, share ideas, and spread innovation. Utilizing the latest machine learning technology, Wefarm’s service works both online and over SMS. Wefarm knowledge network and marketplace for small-scale farmers help them share and access vital information, products, and services. Wefarm is free for farmers to use.

Applications and projects:

• WeFarm SMS system: Wefarm is a platform where independent farms thrive. By connecting with each other, the community open-sources its collective expertise and resources, unlocking better outcomes for themselves and their farms.  The community can connect online or via SMS, and access a trusted marketplace of physical retailers. Farmers can access Wefarm anytime, for free, even without access to the internet. The Wefarm App is where the Wefarm community comes together online. This digital platform allows farmers to browse special-interest forums, and form groups based on their specific farming interests and value chains.

• Wefarm Marketplace: Marketplace is Wefarm’s network of trusted retail partners. They work closely with their retailers to provide the best value products for their members to help turn plans into farm output.

• Machine learning and NLP: WeFarm harness artificial intelligence to empower human intelligence. This means all machine learning at Wefarm aims to supplement, augment, and identify the knowledge, skills, and achievements of our farmers. As they work towards connecting every smallholder farmer on earth, they match farmers with issues to farmers with the best solutions.

15. A de Agro

Headquarters: Sao Paulo

Founded: 2021

Founder(s): Rodrigo Almeida

Description: A de Agro is an agriculture company that is in agribusiness that provides financial services.

Applications and projects:

• Financial Credit for farmers: Through A de Agro agricultural intelligence, they evaluate the rural producer from pre-planting to harvest to deliver the fairest credit for your crop.

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