The businesses selected for this year’s HARVEST Agtech Accelerator program – a leading business development program for agtech startups and small-to-medium enterprises – have been announced.
The program – which lasts for five months – began with a 2-day business boot camp at Joondalup Resort which involved sessions covering various agtech sector issues such as lean business planning, funding opportunities and agriculture strategy.
The attendees also heard from Agworld GM Simon Foley during the bootcamp.
Going forth, the cohort has a busy few months ahead with numerous workshops covering areas such as strategic marketing, governance, attracting customers and investors, and IP thanks to the support of Wrays.
In its fifth year, HARVEST tailors its masterclasses to participants’ needs, matching businesses with grower mentors and on-farm trails. Through the program, businesses also have the opportunity to leverage extensive networks across technology, regional development, research organisations and agricultural producers.
Also, this year targets agtech innovations that are assisting the grains industry.
“HARVEST is designed to connect agtech startups to farmers,” explained Tash Teakle, Agristart managing director.
‘We want to make sure that the agtech solutions that are being developed are actually going to solve a real problems for farmers, in order to make sure we do see adoption of technologies that are going to make a difference on farm.”
Ultimately, technology underpins everything we do and data is so critical for decision making, so we want to provide our farmers with access to quality data so they can make better informed decisions.
Tash Teakle, Agristart managing director
“Anything we can do to make farming more sustainable, safer and of course more profitable, is worthwhile and technology is going to play a huge role in all of that.”
Ms Teakle said that startup founders typically leave corporate roles to develop new ideas, and it’s paramount to receive support.
“We wrap around the support and provide them with connections if they don’t already have them in the agricultural sector, help them with business planning and financial modelling and assist them get access to capital”
The HARVEST seven
Here is this year’s cohort…
- TechNol – “ a leading provider of cutting-edge technologies and innovation in fire identification and management, and has developed, designed and built AgriGard, a new way of protecting your valuable assets from fire.”
- Agrisave Technology – “..provides tools for farmers to grow, scale and maintain high quality yield.”
- Nork Solutions – “..diverts food waste from landfill and recycles it back into the food supply chain. We have serviced some of WA’s largest food manufacturers for over 20 years, saving half a million kilograms of waste from landfill per year.”
- Whole – “technology that enables cost-effective and large-scale production of plant-based ingredients and flavours. 100% free of any chemical processing, produces no waste, and unlocks all of the nutritional goodness of the original ingredients.
- Eden Towers – “commercial-scale, sustainable, hyper-efficient, indoor vertical farms that grow fresh, high quality produce closer to customers, at sustainable volumes and at an affordable price point, solving real food security and quality problems.”
- S5 Systems – “innovative sensors, actuators, and end-to-end complete IoT solutions for the Industry 4.0, with non-invasive, battery-powered or energy-harvested tech allowing installation and use without professional knowledge and tools.”
- Hemp Squared “manufacturer of environmentally friendly hemp-lime blocks that sequester carbon from the atmosphere and build highly insulated and fire-resistant homes and buildings.”