Last week, over 400 people attended the 2022 Regional Ventures Showcase day to see 12 regional and agtech businesses exhibit and pitch their innovations.
This event was driven by Innovation Cluster in collaboration with Beanstalk Agtech and the WA Agtech Meetups.
Sean Webb, Manager Innovation and Partnerships at CBH Group, was the MC for the presentations at The Westin ballroom. These included a startup success story from Leopold Lucas from Ripe Robotics, who was the winner at the international agricultural event FIRA Future Farming 2021 for Best Field Robot.
The Regional Ventures event included 12 startup pitches, including Aquatic AI, Rocky Ridge Brewery, Orijin Plus, Reo Blocks, Way Tree, Target Mining Resources, Aglytica, Contact Organics, Tucker Bush, A2B Blockchain, S5 Systems and Agora Livestock. Innovations included novel online platforms, sustainable products, and unique hardware systems.
Minister for Innovation and ICT Stephen Dawson spoke to the crowd about government support of agtech and regional innovation.
“As a regional Member of parliament based in the Pilbara representing a mining and pastoral region know how important the agtech sector to the Western Australian economy,” he said.
It has gone leaps and bounds over the past few years with extraordinary things happening on farm thanks to innovation like we see before us today.
Stephen Dawson, Minister for Innovation and ICT
Regional Ventures was also supported by the UK Consulate General – who sponsors other WTF events – as a way to develop innovation partnerships between the UK AgTech community and its Australian counterparts.
Exhibiting founder Glenn Briggs from Aglytica said he made strong connections during the Showcase, which will be beneficial for collaboration as well as cross-promotion.
“I gained several valuable connections at my business stand from a potential customer as well as Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development which has already led to deep conversations. (It was a) very well-arranged and coordinated event that brought more opportunity than I received at the last 3 field days I attended.”
The event was held as part of West Tech Fest 2022, and supported by the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (JTSI) through the New Industries Fund.
Agricultural sector lags behind in digitisation
With a critical need to increase food production by 70% in order to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050, the agriculture sector lags behind other industries in terms of digitisation. It also faces challenges of less arable land, finite resources and labour shortages.
These problems were the inspiration for Ripe Robotics, which has developed an autonomous system to perform complex tasks in agriculture such as harvesting fruit.
There were many challenges with developing a robot, due to environmental variables and limited internet connectivity. However, thanks to new satellites improving regional connectivity, Ripe Robotics, was one of the first companies to gain access to Starlink satellites. It now receives high-speed internet.
During their startup journey, lessons were learnt about investment, maintaining the expectations of farmers and the importance of honesty about tech development, along with the need to form partnerships with farmers as a method to build trust.
It is hoped that optimising these farming operations with robotics will result in less damage to fruit, more insights and better yields.
Ripe Robotics was one of 14 companies selected for the Global Harvest Automation Initiative by Western Growers, which represents half the fruit grown in the United States.
“The space is advancing with a lot of funding growth in recent years – around 45% year on year into agtech. This is being driven by interest from key individuals, [such as] Bill Gates and Mike Cannon-Brooks, and venture capital funds who have recognised that farming and agriculture is a critical component of solving the climate crisis,” said Mr Lucas.
Ripe Robotics has benefited from receiving Accelerating Commercialisation, MVP Ventures and R&D grants, with more than 50% of their total funding from the government.
Already, Ripe Robotics has received a high of level interest from growers with 100,00 hectares of farms on their waitlist.
