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Globally, we’ve hit an AgriTech revolution with annual investments in AgriTech hitting ten billion dollars for the past two years but Adrian Percy doesn’t think it’s enough. With over 30 years of experience, the executive director of the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative wants to see more corporations tap into the open innovation ecosystem and take advantage of the opportunities on their doorstep.“I think it's incredible when you think 10 billion has been invested each year in AgT...

Scentian Bio funding to speed up disease detection via an electronic nose

Article as featured in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine here. Kiwi startup Scentian Bio, which is developing a ground-breaking technology that can detect human diseases, has been awarded a US $1.7m grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Along with a further $2.5m raise next year, this will enable a faster return on investment and staff to be hired....

Viktual+ combines science, nature and indigenous wisdom for better health.

Article as featured in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine here. While there are many supplements on the market, Viktual+ is among the first to use New Zealand and Pacific native ingredients for better health. Husband and wife team Rochelle and Tana Umaga founded Viktual+ in 2021 after realising they knew too many people of their own age who had died from poor health....

ProTag's smart technology to track and monitor animal health

Article as featured in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine here. Two current Massey PhD engineering students have created the world’s most advanced livestock ear tag to remotely monitor livestock, with a goal of getting them clipped on the ears of thousands of animals in 100 farms within the next four years....

Don't know what to cook for dinner tonight? MenuAid AI makes the decision easy.

Article as featured in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine here. Like so many great ideas, MenuAid was born out of the need to solve a personal problem. Toby Skilton and Elise Hilliam – the founders and CEOs of MenuAid, as well as life partners – both love to cook, but were too busy to put much effort into making dinner and found themselves making the same few recipes. They were stuck in a rut, and decided to turn to artificial intelligence for help....

Meet the Founders - Nunatak

Change is pressing on the agricultural industry in a huge way right now. Land use is under increasing scrutiny, and land investors and financial institutions are in need of robust and reliable data to help them manage their exposure to climate risk and identify future land use opportunities. Without adaptation it is believed that Agribusinesses might lose up to $150 USD billion by 2030.  That’s where Nunatak comes in. Nunatak uses artificial intelligence and crop science to provide high s...

Meet the Founders - Tokaora Diagnostics

Facial eczema costs the sheep, cattle and deer industries millions of dollars a year in lost production. The invisible (until it's too late) disease is hard to test for, and with climate warming, it will start to become a problem for more farmers around the country. So what if we could make the invisible illness visible? Enter Tokaora Diagnostics who are developing a rapid diagnostic test for facial eczema. Meet the founders, mother and son duo, Pam and Frey Livingston. They are one of the star...

Meet the Founders - myWellabee

Over half a billion people around the world actively avoid food allergens when shopping for food. That figure is growing and highlights the ever-growing food intolerances and allergies issue. Navigating the complex world of food allergies and intolerances is tricky, but one determined father is on a mission to change that....

Aimer raises a million dollars to launch a ‘Siri’ for NZ farmers

For the average farmer, optimising pasture use is inherently complex, with different herd numbers, paddock growth rates, pre and post graze targets and target feed intakes requiring a myriad of tools and dashboards. Managing this requires a lot of manual calculations, ‘clicking’, guesses and communication with staff and quite often, the use of consultants. To solve this, pastoral optimisation startup Aimer Development has built an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled digital assistant (calle...

Meet the Founder - Winealyse

It’s estimated that wineries around New Zealand spend around $80 million each year on testing. One start-up is looking to save costs and give winemakers more time to focus on winemaking and less time in the lab with its testing device. Winealyse is a venture developing a capillary microfluidic wine testing device for the improvement of wine quality. Meet the founder Daniel Mak. He is one of the start-ups taking part in our three-month Sprout 2022 Accelerator in the Cohort IX intake....

Meet the Founder - SaproTech

The leather goods industry is worth around $400 billion. From handbags to clothing, the industry uses subsidiary products from the primary sector. It also contributes to our global emissions. But what if you could create a leather equivalent from fungi? That’s just what one New Zealand company, SaproTech, is setting out to do. Using the power of fungi, they are producing leather textiles produced from mycelium fibre. Meet the founder, Dr Keith Hudson. He along with his co-founders, are one of ...

Meet the Founder - Grain Crawler

Around 168 million tonnes of stored grain go to waste every year. That’s enough to feed 350 million people. In silo grain spoilage is a huge problem costing the industry $24 billion a year. And it’s not just the wastage that’s the problem. It’s the health and safety aspect for farmers as well. “Farmers going into silos when the grain is off can cause some big health issues, so having these realisations of wastage and health and safety issues is what really inspired me into action and c...

Meet the Founders - Delta Waterways

Councils and other industry bodies are under increasing pressure to improve their monitoring and reporting on the health of New Zealand’s many waterways. With many of our waterways being large and often remote, accurate data harvesting can be difficult and not always as effective or efficient as needed. Delta Waterways is hoping to change that. The company is developing a software tool for waterbody quality measurement and analysis SaaS platform using multispectral satellite imagery. Meet the ...

Kaitech by SeaSpire

80% of live fish stocks have been exhausted, but our global appetite for seafood is increasing. If fishing continues at the current rate, we face the chance of an ocean devoid of fish and the end of entire ecosystems. Enter, KaiTech by SeaSpire, a deep tech company, concerned about the stress on our marine ecosystems and looking to combat the problem through cutting-edge technology that produces bioprinted plant-based, edible scaffolds for seafood analogues. Meet the founders Varun Gadodia and S...

Genesmith by NeXtgen Agri

For many sheep farmers, a big challenge to their ability to optimise their production systems lies in not knowing which lambs are coming from which ewes, meaning they can’t accurately identify the most productive animals they should be breeding. It’s not a new problem, but it’s never been solved in a way that’s intuitive, cost-effective and practical for farmers, until now....

Health is the underlying theme for Sprout's newest Cohort IX

When you lift the lid on the nine companies selected for the latest Sprout cohort, you get an overwhelming sense of a shared purpose. All these companies are striving to achieve the same thing - the improved health of our people, flora & fauna. The diverse range of companies selected for Cohort IX really display the growth of the ag & foodtech ecosystem over the last 5 - 7 years. The technology is becoming more advanced and the solutions are becoming more innovative. From using mycelium as a lea...

Why entrepreneurs need to focus on their mental health and wellbeing

It's widely accepted that starting a venture from scratch can be risky, exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time. The challenges that face entrepreneurs are well documented, from raising capital, inconsistent income, establishing a brand, a customer base, the long hours - the list goes on. Entrepreneurs are often well-schooled on this side of entrepreneurial life. But what about the mental side of the business? After all, behind every start-up idea is a human being. An editorial piece in...

Is the age of free money over?

The answer is probably yes.In recent years, 'free' money has been abundant in the market due to unique microeconomic conditions. But the tides are turning with markets becoming unstable, inflation rising, and central banks attempting to stamp out this inflation. Meanwhile, companies that have ridden the wave and enjoyed the perks of inflated valuations and seemingly endless 'free' money will soon have to grapple with the consequences of the current economic climate. It's not all bad, especi...

MenuAid Raises $1M to Develop AI-Powered FoodTech Platform

MenuAid, a cloud-based food technology platform that is solving the “What's for dinner?” dilemma has received a $1M investment from Sprout, New Zealand’s specialist AgriTech and FoodTech seed-stage investor.  MenuAid provides highly personalised recipes and smart shopping lists on subscription, tapping into global consumer preferences for healthy and convenient home cooked meals, that are affordable and reduce food waste and packaging....

Can we reduce emissions and keep feeding the world?

20-30% of global emissions come from agricultural emissions. New Zealand's contribution to global emissions is 0.16%, and of that 0.08% comes from our agricultural activities. While many view this figure as a negative, it's not painting the whole picture.When looking at these figures, it's important to look at them from a global perspective and a per kilogram of product and nutritional perspective....

Meet the Founders - Bayuble

Sometimes big ideas come in small packages. Founded by three young women while still at high school, Bayuble was born out of the Young Enterprise Scheme and is all about solving the problem of plastic waste from fruit labels.Meet the founders Zoe Rookes, Maggie Peacock and Sarah Wixon. They are one of the start-ups taking part in our three-month Sprout 2022 Accelerator in the Cohort VIII intake....

Meet the Founders - Axis7

By 2050 there is estimated to be an extra 2 billion mouths to feed. To support that we’ll need a 70% increase in crop production. The only problem is, we don’t have the labour to harvest what we currently produce. It’s a big problem and one that Kiwi business Axis7 is hoping to help solve with the help of robotics. Meet the founders Josh Barnett and Scott Harvey. They are one of the start-ups taking part in our three-month Sprout 2022 Accelerator in the Cohort VIII intake....

Meet the Founders - Welfare Concepts

Improving animal welfare standards in New Zealand has been a focal point for the primary industries for many years. Huge efforts and gains have been made in this space, and one Kiwi start-up company is hoping to improve animal welfare even further.Meet the founders of Welfare Concepts, Richard Emslie and Richard Olde Riekerink. They are one of the start-ups taking part in our three-month Sprout 2022 Accelerator in the Cohort VIII intake....

Meet the Founders - MenuAid

Meal kit services have become increasingly popular in recent years. In fact, the global industry is worth 10 billion dollars and growing 13% year on year. While it might seem like the silver bullet for the ‘what’s for dinner’ conundrum many households have,  it’s not always the case. Meal-kit delivery providers can be costly, unsustainable, inflexible and ultimately not really solving the problem. Enter MenuAid, a seamless menu planning platform that makes mealtimes easier with week...

Meet the Founders - BioGold

Pine pollen has been used traditionally for 3000+ of years as a superfood and herbal supplement, and one Kiwi company is forging a market for it here in New Zealand. The pine pollen market in China is worth almost $4 billion, but few people here are aware of its incredible properties. Meet the founder Carl Meyer of BioGold, one of the start-ups taking part in our three-month Sprout 2022 Accelerator in the Cohort VIII intake. After studying one of New Zealand’s largest industries, forestry, he ...