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Meet 13 New Plug And Play Startups

Agtools Inc

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Experiencing supply chain in person worldwide as I have developed specialty crops for the past 25 years and watching how farmers are impacted the most when it breaks down.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

A tangible solution and a blessing to start positively impacting farmers and buyers to avoid losses—food waste, financial and carbon footprint.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Engage farmers worldwide to understand that market behavior determines their
financial path while impacting food waste
and CO2.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Agtech is not an overnight success. In fact, it is a mission to improve the worldwide food supply chain. It is a cultural shift across every stakeholder, be patient and resilient.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology?
Marketing? Accounting? HR? Marketing to farmers – proper approach, proper language, proper timing. North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

Headquarters – not as crucial as creating a physical local presence in the region as we have done in other regions such as Wenatchee, WA for Northwest while hiring local talent. All our engineers and all staff members are in rural areas.

This magazine reaches 15,000+farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

There are 76 variables that impact the worldwide market and your destiny. Allow us to demo how fast and swift you can manage through those variables.

Agtools – Microsoft Award Winner Machine Learning and AI – is a worldwide software as a service (SaaS) global food and agricultural intelligence data solutions company for the food and ag worldwide supply chain platform offering real-time data and intelligence for farmers and buyers to manage market volatility, increase profitability and reduce the world’s food waste. We have over 500 commodities, 27 years of historical data, 150 million plus data points and over 50 years of weather patterns worldwide uploading at one billion transactions per second.

Eagronom

eAgronom takes care of farmers who take care of nature! We launched AI Consulting as a first service. It collects data, gives suggestions and helps with people management. As a second step, we will start paying 25 Euro per captured CO2 for farmers who follow our advice and grow organic carbon levels in the soil.

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Robin, CEO and founder of eAgronom, comes from a farming family. His father has a 3,000 acre organic grain farm in south Estonia and his grandfather has the same size conventional grain farm. Robin’s father started to look for the tool that would help with business management. He didn’t find anything easy to use that would combine the agronomical side, financials and people management. Robin had studied computer science in university and together with a friend, they developed the first prototype of the tool that is now used by 1,400 grain farmers in the European Union and Australia.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech program is our way to get to know more about farming in North-America. eAgronom has a presence in seven countries and two continents, meaning that we understand the uniqueness of different regions. We believe in localizing our tool to match local needs and the AgTech program helps with first research steps.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Focus on customer engagement. This is where the value is coming from. If your customers are using the tool actively and fully, then it means they are getting high value out of it.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

eAgronom has been blessed with the good technical talent of Estonia where global unicorns like Skype, Transferwise and Boltwere founded. The biggest challenge for us
is to understand who the right local people are in every new market we enter. North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before.

When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where
do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

eAgronom is currently in the process of deciding where to locate our NorthAmerica headquarters. Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program might give us some answers.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

Take care of nature and nature will take
care of you!

Shepherd Farming

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

I grew up working on our family farm in Northeast Montana and realized that there had to be a better way to manage all of the things going on than how we did it. I started really digging into ag and tech in college, coming up with the first concepts with friends in our dorm room and then refined my research in grad school before being hired on at Syngenta where I spent over six years working as a research architect. I showed our concepts to my managers and was given the all clear to start building the first prototype on nights / weekends and then started testing it out with farmer friends back home in Montana. Shortly after that, we were accepted into AgLaunch and have been pushing forward ever since!

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

We’re so excited to be a part of Plug and Play ND, we can’t wait to work with some of the largest companies in the ag and tech spaces to take ideas and concepts that we’ve been working on with farmers and really bring them to life. Our mission is to prevent anything from getting in the way of the work getting done on farms and
we think that working with these groups is going to let us take that to the next level in new and exciting ways that farmers are going to love.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Agriculture is such a tricky industry, which is what makes it so challenging and interesting when looking for problems to solve. Farms have to work so hard to get their crop grown and to market and there are so many hurdles along the way that
they really don’t have much control over, but that can be made better just through
streamlining and intelligent technology.

Shepherd is focused on making sure that nothing stops the necessary work on farms from getting done, and on a global scale that really adds up. Not only would farms be able to be confident in their ability to have every stage of the season be taken care of
right when it needs to get done, but their quality of life would improve as they would
not have to stress about what’s coming up ahead and knowing that it’s taken care of.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Being closely connected to the farmers you serve is so key. We work with farms of all kinds and sizes around the country and take in an enormous amount of feedback and advice and that is what drives our development forward. Don’t be afraid to cut features back or remove them entirely if they get in the way of your overall mission.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology?
Marketing? Accounting? HR?

Marketing and business development. In agriculture, everything is driven by relationships and with 2020, building relationships with farmers and showing them how Shepherd works on their farm and how it solves problems they face every day is just more difficult because face to face meetings are challenging or impossible outright. We’re constantly adjusting plans and looking for better ways to meet with gr owers, but we can’t wait for things to return closer to normal in the future.

Spacesense

Plug and play:Spacesense

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

It started with a conversation around how a roofing company was trying to do market analysis by flying a drone over a predefined city. Trying to base an entire country’s market on a few cities seemed very impractical but that was the best they could do.

Being in the aerospace industry, it seemed obvious that they should be using satellite imagery for this. When we asked the company about it, they did not know that
could be a possibility in the first place. So I built a quick proof of concept with satellite imagery and machine learning that automatically would detect if it was a house or not and then identify the roof material type for it.

This made me explore more to understand why so many industries are not using such a powerful technology today. One that made a very big impact on me was a conversation with a couple of non-profit organizations. The first one sold solar electrification products in Tanzania and one of their biggest problems was not knowing where the people lived. Even when we go on Google Maps, there are barely any roads or houses mapped outside of the big cities. And the second one was trying to
provide aid to people affected by floods in another African country. The only way they
knew where to send this aid was from the information they got from the media.
This was shocking because we always see flood maps as soon as the incident occurs. Flood detection from satellite imagery is nothing new. But somehow this was not available, especially when it was needed and it could have saved many from suffering in the floods. In all the cases, if they had the right information at the right time, it would completely change how they operated. Yet, the main barrier to getting access to these insights was lack of access to satellite imagery technology. The main reason for that turned out to be lack of knowledge, the complexity and effort in going from raw satellite data to insights usable by these organizations and the cost of doing so. So I started SpaceSense with the goal to make this technology accessible to everyone.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program is a way for us to better understand the US farmer and the agribusiness needs here.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

We would have then achieved the dream of sustainable farming globally.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

My advice is spend more time talking to farmers and other agtech stakeholders than building the solution itself.

North Dakota, Minnesota and theUpper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

Not sure. For us, it is important to be closer to our customers that can benefit the most from our solution. We hope to have a more clear answer by with the help of this program.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

SpaceSense helps make precision agriculture more precise at a fraction of the cost.

Insight Sensing

plg and play: insight sensing

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Our start-up was founded as a result of decades of research in precision nitrogen management at the University of Minnesota (UMN). Tyler Nigon (co-Founder/ CTO) and myself are both Ph.D. students at UMN and our previous research has
been focused on finding better solutions to nitrogen management in both potato and corn cropping systems. We both understand that the digital ag tools currently available to farmers and agronomists just simply aren’t yet good enough and we are driven every day to find science-based solutions to enable better on-farm decision making for nitrogen management.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

We are so excited to be a part of the Plug and Play program in North Dakota. Fargo is quickly becoming recognized as a global hub of AgTech and we are excited to work with the existing partners in this ecosystem, including with the Grand Farm. In my
opinion, there is no better ecosystem for our company than the one we are joining as
part of this program.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

While nitrogen management has an outsized impact on farmgate profitability, it also has the potential for substantial environmental impacts as well. In most cases, negative environmental impacts from inefficient nitrogen management are simple due to the serious challenges of managing for weather and soil variability and not from a lack of energy or effort by farmers. We know that by providing farmers
better digital tools for precision nitrogen management, we are also helping them
continue their existing efforts to be good stewards of the land, air and water.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

I recommend starting with a problem that needs to be solved and then working backwards towards finding the right technology to meet the on-farm need. Over
our journey, Tyler and I have considered multiple different technological approaches
for precision nitrogen management.

However, our guiding principle has always been to design a solution that satisfies on farm needs rather than simply latching on to a technology first and then trying to apply it to every possible use-case.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

Our biggest pain point at the moment is the scaling up our technology stack. The data sources and computing infrastructure which work well at the research scale are quite different from those which works well at the on-farm scale. As AgTech matures, however, the number of readily-available data and software resources will continue to increase and reduce the magnitude of this pain point.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

We are personally convinced that both Fargo and Minneapolis will end up
becoming the center of cutting edge AgTech activity for the foreseeable future. Although, we may just be biased—I am originally from the Twin Cities and Tyler grew up on a dairy farm in Central Wisconsin that his family still owns and
operates. However, the combination of cutting edge research coming out of NDSU, UMN, UND, UW-Madison, SDSU, etc., the existing presence of major corporations
positioned throughout the food and agriculture value chains and proximity
to innovative farmers and their partners makes the Upper Midwest the best home
for our growing start-up.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

We are exclusively focused on providing data-driven nitrogen management solutions, not on selling sensors, images and other analytics, which don’t have a meaningful return to on-farm decision making.

Pro Power AG

plug and ply-Pro Power Ag

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

In college, my business partner and CoFounder Sam Hanson were roommates. Sam was working as an agronomy intern at a local co-op and was tasked with scouting and making herbicide recommendations. The process was overwhelming and time-consuming with much of his evenings after work spent researching herbicides that would suit his growers’ needs best. Studying computer science, Sam approached me with the simple idea of improving the herbicide selection process with computers.
We prototyped this idea and entered the NDSU Innovation Challenge, which we eventually won by promoting the idea that herbicide selection can be done better and can positively change the landscape of agronomy.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

It is fantastic to have the opportunity to shine a light on small companies that might just need an extra push in the right direction.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Weed resistance is a threat to any farmer around the globe. The overreliance on the
same herbicides year after year allow for weeds to evolve defenses against these chemicals. In extreme cases, they may not work at all. Herbicide overuse costs farmers more money and can have negative impacts on the environment. We believe that poor decisions are made from lack of information. An informed individual will be able to create intelligent herbicide plans that prevent harmful weed resistance, increase yields, decrease input costs and foster healthy fields for years to come. You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now.

What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Be guarded with the 3 F’s: friends, family and fanatics. They will all tell you the idea is great no matter where it sits. That’s not to say their support isn’t appreciated. In fact, their encouragement and optimism is crucial to keeping your momentum but echo-chambers are dangerous. It is equally important to listen to your critics and the people that didn’t buy your product to help shape your direction.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

Our founding members are located in Fargo, ND, and the MN Metro area and we
intend to stay here.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

Our software will make you a more informed decision-maker for your farm while decreasing costs, improving weedcontrol, minimizing weed-resistance, and improving yields.

EarthSense Inc.

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Since 2009, we have traveled the world and spoken with hundreds and hundreds of farmers, agronomists and agricultural professionals. The consistent problem has been the lack of affordable and skilled labor. We knew early on that an advanced robotics and AI platform needed to be created to solve the broad variety of challenges that all derive from the decreasing number of people involved in agriculture all around the world.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

The Plug and Play ND program is a unique opportunity for us to connect with leading agricultural companies, other startup teams and, most of all, more farmers.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Farmers will be able to farm profitably and more easily while simultaneously improving their soils.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Speak with as many farmers as you can. Put their interests ahead of everyone else’s.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

We’re already headquartered in central Illinois—heart of the corn belt! We expect to open additional offices all around the midwest soon to be closer to more farmers and more local talent.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

We’re always looking to learn from farmers. Please get in touch with us if you’d like to host our robots on your fields in 2021!

Provender Technologies

plug and play-Provender Technologies
Proventor Technology specializes in automated feeding systems for beef and dairy cattle operations. The company is focused on providing affordable, labor-saving technologies that increase feed efficiency, improve profitability and give farmers greater flexibility. We work directly with farmers to address the specific needs of their cattle operation and make the best use of their existing facilities and equipment.

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

I grew up on a family farm in southeastern SD. I watched my father work long hours and miss out on events because of the cattle chores. With an automated feeding system, the feeding process is greatly simplified. Feed boxes are filled when it is convenient and the measuring, mixing and delivery is carried out automatically at specified times.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

The Plug and Play program is helping us accelerate the commercialization of our technology through mentorship and connections with Plug and Play corporate partners. North Dakota and the startup community in Fargo has built an environment that I believe will play a critical role inspiring and supporting the advancement of the agricultural industry.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

The leadership and social fabric of rural communities would be strengthened. Time saved affords farmers other economic opportunities and can greatly improve managerial intensity and work-life balance.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Seek out your local startup community, and work directly with farmers in developing your product-market fit.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

Marketing continues to be the biggest challenge. Farmers face a flood of products claiming to solve all sorts of problems. We are focused on providing a physical solution to save labor – a valuable product, but it is a much larger investment than an app, for example. Right now, it’s a matter of building trust and developing a track record.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

We think our optimal headquarters location will be Sioux Falls, SD, or Fargo, ND. We see a bright future for family farms, rural communities and our business-friendly states. This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers.

In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

Your time should be the most important commodity you have. Don’t forget to include it when calculating your cost of production.

FarmQA

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Howard Dahl and Amity Technology founded FarmQA. Howard and his family have been responsible for some of the biggest business successes in North Dakota, including Melroe, Bobcat, Steiger Tractor, Concord and Amity Technology. Recognizing that agricultural producers and their advisors needed better, more timely information, Howard and his team founded FarmQA. The company’s focus is increased operational effectiveness for producers – not the gathering and re-sale of data to third parties.

FarmQA also focused from the beginning on building a solution that is secure, scalable and reliable. Many startup companies focus initially on customer-facing apps without addressing enterprise-class system architectures. Then as they acquire customers and data, they have difficulty scaling and addressing their data failings in the midst of serving and satisfying customers. We took a different approach, building an enterprise-class solution right from the beginning to easily and cost-effectively grow to support very large customer numbers and vast data quantities.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

We’re honored to be selected to be a part of this program. As for any startup, it’s a challenge and a balancing act to apply resources to continuously build out product functionality to meet our target audience’s needs and add and take care of customers while also seeking partnerships and investment. Plug and Play provides us the opportunity to hone our strategy and our pitch, and it connects us with potential investors. It’s the perfect program for a startup like ours, and we’re excited to see where it leads. 

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

We feel that the Agtech industry to date has come short in meeting the needs—and anticipating the needs—of agronomists. Agronomists are critical to the overall success of crop production. If our tools were being used by agronomists globally, they would be more effective in communicating with their growers and more efficient at collaborating on the right solutions to the problems encountered in the field. They’d enjoy improved workflows between scouts — digital or human, consultants, agronomists, growers and purchasers to drive better visibility and profitability for all. This information would be very valuable when viewed from a traceability perspective in support of higher product prices and the potential of demand-driven or regulatory reporting focused on sustainability.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Dream…but be realistic. We’d all like to believe that our great idea will be an overnight sensation, but few ideas (even great ones) succeed with “build it, and they [customers] will come” as the only guiding principle. Find the niche for your product, but recognize that it might take a couple of tries to get it right. And when you land your customers, treat them well. Work closely with your early adopters, provide exemplary support and they will return the favor by being your greatest champions in the market. And lastly, be prepared to wear a lot of hats. Depending on the day, you may be wearing a marketing, sales, product or business development, financial analysis or customer support hat—just to name a few. If you come from a large development company, this can be equal parts freeing and terrifying.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

As mentioned earlier, we started by building an enterprise-class solution. The challenge with this approach is the iceberg problem. A large portion of the product is not highly visible to customers. However, it is critical for a scalable company. Now that the foundation is in place, we need to accelerate the delivery of a robust feature set. To that end, we’re still light on the number of software engineers on staff. This limits our ambitions to grow the company and fill out missing features in our product.

Spornado

The Spornado early alert system for crop disease helps growers optimize their pesticide use. Our easy to use wind powered air sampler and highly sensitive DNA analysis, allows them to know when crop disease is in the air long before its seen in the field, enabling them to spray precisely, saving time, money and yields.

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Myself and two other founders had been working on the leading edge of sampling the indoor air for fungal spores for decades. Sampling of offices, hospitals and homes is a common tool to identify indoor fungal contamination. While working together at a top commercial microbiology laboratory, we received a request from a crop protection company for a power-less air sampler that farmers can use outdoors. We were shocked to find there wasn’t one so we designed the Spornado. Word of the Spornado spread fast – fungal diseases cost the ag industry a TON of Money. From our start in Potato, we have expanded to a dozen crop/disease combinations.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to get exposure, mentorship and support from the Plug and Play ecosystem. The ND Agtech program partners have a wealth of experience and connections can definitely contribute to our company’s growth. But most importantly, it will allow us to better get to know farmers in the region and explore how our technology can help make their operations more sustainable – both fiscally and environmentally.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Targeted and reduced pesticide use: saving money, chemical use, greenhouse gases. Extension of the effectiveness of pesticides; target use will slow down plant resistance to the chemicals.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Keep going! Learn from your growers. Incorporate what you learn and then do it again. 

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

This is a question that is currently on our radar since we are looking for a US headquarters location. Our optimal location will be in one of these locations that are committing to furthering Agtech and will depend on the client base and which crop(s) we decide to focus on. This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers.

In one sentence, what would you like to tell them?

We’d like to help you use your fungal pesticides more efficiently

Myconourish Limited

Maximizing crop quality is key and produce that doesn’t meet the standards required to go to retail results in wastage and lost revenue. At MycoNourish, we add value for growers. We do this with beneficial fungi that work in symbiosis with crops to enhance yields.

Unlike other products, our exciting innovation allows us to customise new advanced strains of these fungi to pair with specific crops and tailor them to solve the most important problem in each one — delivering targeted benefits and providing a reliable, sustainable means of reducing wastage and improving yields and profitability.

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Whilst working on academic research, I had the opportunity to get out of the lab and speak to growers. We were interested in finding out if they had ever heard of the specific type of microbes that we work with or had any experience with them. Not only were they fully aware of them, but they had been buying various products and trialling them.

The growers were interested in harnessing their potential, but they found that existing products were unreliable and worked on some varieties, but not others or in one season but not the next. We were asked for recommendations of alternative products, but there wasn’t anything available on the market that was suitable for their production systems. After having the same conversation again and again, we realized that there was demand in the marketplace, and with our strong scientific foundation, we knew that we could harness some of the more complex parts of the biology of the microbes to allow them to be able to be used in an entirely new way—customizing them to pair with specific crops to give reliable and consistent performance and tailoring them to improve specific traits of plant growth to solve the most important production problem in each one.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

The Plug and Play Agtech Program is fantastic, and we were delighted to be selected to take part. The program has a holistic approach to fostering innovative Agtech startups and provides us with connections to their partners, mentoring, networking, insights into the US market and a range of other opportunities. Even though the program has started recently, we have had some great conversations, met a number of other exciting companies, and started to explore opportunities.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

One of the key benefits of our products is that they help to improve crop quality. In high value crops such as strawberries, an average of 10 percent of production falls below the quality standards required for retail markets. In the EU, 143 billion Euros is lost by growers to wastage in primary production each year. There are countless microbes that have both positive and negative effects on plant growth. Ensuring that crops are paired with the best ones offers a novel way of improving yields, and over 85 percent of the world’s crop species could benefit from our technology. By improving crop quality, we can reduce wastage, improve food security and help growers to maximise their revenue.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Go for it! It is an incredibly exciting journey and you will get a huge amount out of it. It’s an amazing feeling to take your future into your own hands, and to have the opportunity to make a meaningful difference with your products. My advice would be to focus on building a great team around you—play to your strengths, and build a team that has the expertise, mentality, and culture to drive your business to success.

If you need advice on an issue you have then reached out to those around you. It’s amazing how people with vast amounts of experience are happy to give you their time and we are incredibly grateful for the assistance we have received.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

We have had great traction and we are currently working on scaling up production to meet demand, as well as gearing up to launching our first two products. Despite Covid-19 changing how we work, we are managing to juggle many different aspects of the business, and we are really excited for the months ahead. We have a philosophy of playing to our strengths and partnering with others who have experience in different areas, so we are keen to not only grow our internal team, but to also develop relationships with others in the agri value chain, and to further explore the North American markets.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

We are currently based in Dundee, Scotland, which has been an ideal location to start the company. We have had fantastic support from the entrepreneurial community here and programs such as Converge Challenge, The Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowships and Scottish EDGE really help to give companies a head start and provide founders with the training and resources they need to maximise the potential of their companies. We are also in an ideal location to access hotbeds of production of our initial target crops, so we plan to always maintain a presence here.

Having said that, we recognize the fantastic work being done in North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, and our introduction to the community through Plug and Play has highlighted the opportunities available, so we would love to have a presence in the area!

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them? Our fungi are highly adaptable and can solve a wide range of issues, from improving pollination to changing phenology and in the next few years we are expanding into a wide range of crops, so we’d love to hear from you about the improvements that you would like to make in the production of your crops!

Small Robot Company

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

Farming isn’t working. The current system is broken – both environmentally and commercially. With today’s technology at our fingertips, why are we still farming with a 100 year old model – tractors? Our cofounder Sam is a fourth generation farmer. After a stint in the tech team at Accenture he took over the family farm and realised the business simply wasn’t sustainable longer term and that farming was one of the remaining analog industries. Time to switch to digital. Robotics and artificial intelligence could be hugely transformative. Small Robot Company was born.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

Cohort: Being in a select group of excellent entrepreneurs, and learning from others facing similar challenges, and a confidential panel to consult, is a huge opportunity. Network: The industry leaders and mentors involved could be game-changing for us at this stage of our journey. Prestige: We are extremely proud of the credibility of being selected for the program, especially the cachet will be good with investors as we build to Series A.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Feeding the world while regenerating the planet. A big vision – but a crucial one. We’ll need to increase available food by a massive 70 percent but farming methods today place too heavy a burden on our environment. Robotics could make food production sustainable, reduce arable carbon emissions by 90 percent, and increase biodiversity and yields by 30-40 percent globally.

You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now. What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Product market fit is crucial. We’ve centred our business around farmers, and that has been crucial to our early success. What makes us different is that we’re led by farmers for the benefit of farmers: which has directly led to our development of our Per Plant Farming model, which is unique to the market at present.

What’s your biggest current staffing (or workload) pain point? Technology? Marketing? Accounting? HR?

Technology – we are moving to the next stage as we commercialize and growing fast! Finding the right people is crucial.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

Top of our criteria is definitely local support for agritech, and a strong arable farming industry. North Dakota is coming up high for us at present: it’s such a key center for agriculture and agritech. We’re centred around farmers – this is central to our mission. Being located where we’ll get this customer access and industry support is vital. St Louis would be the other place for serious consideration: we’ve already taken part in a trade mission there, and found the business climate very supportive.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them? Robotics offers a real chance to answer the many questions of modern agriculture in responding to climate change, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and of course soil and food security.

Farm Dog

How did you get the idea to start your company? An epiphany? Or was it something more practical than that?

We asked growers and agronomists what they wanted.

What does it mean to be part of Plug and Play North Dakota’s Agtech Program?

Get feedback locally, expand globally. Having access to Plug and Play’s partner network in North Dakota and around the world provides an unparalleled 360 degree feedback opportunity for us. We just wish we could be in North Dakota in person.

If your product/service was already being used by everyone…globally… what impact would that have?

Growers and agronomists would have more time to focus on value-adding decisions instead of administrative hassles and communication. You’ve already accomplished a lot to get to where you are now.

What advice would you have for those just starting their agtech startup adventures?

Talk to your customers.

North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are embracing Agtech like never before. When you’ve completed the Plug and Play North Dakota Agtech Program, where do you think will be your optimal headquarters location…and why?

The key for Agtech companies is to have reach where their customers are. While we are based in Los Angeles (used to be the #1 ag county in the US!), we hope to build partnerships with folks on the ground in North Dakota, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

This magazine reaches 15,000+ farmers. In one sentence, what would you like to tell them? AgTech adoption shouldn’t be hard. Farm Dog makes it easy

What do you think?

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