Agritech has a kind of buzz around it these days. And that buzz has picked up an even accelerated pace in emerging, tech-oriented economies like Israel, India and China among others. This buzz has proven its mettle once again, with Israel’s precision agriculture startup ‘Agritask’ securing a substantial, $8.5 Mn in its first ever round of financing.
The round was led by the InsuResilience Investment Fund and co-invested by Barn Investimentos. The InsuResilience Investment Fund was set up on behalf of the German government by KfW and is managed by Swiss-based impact investment manager BlueOrchard Finance. Barn Investimentos is a Brazilian early stage VC Investor focusing on high growth companies in ag-tech and in other industries.
Tel Aviv based Agritask has developed a flexible and integrative data-driven software platform for agronomic management. With what the company calls, a “One Platform, One Database” approach, it provides a holistic solution to support real time decision-making. The platform can integrate with over 40 hardware and software data sources, including John Deere, Airbus, IBM and SAP. Furthermore, Agritask supports the entire agricultural production process, ranging from soil fertility management, growth monitoring, to harvest logistics.
With flexible system architecture, it can adapt to each client’s workflow and chosen technologies, hence offering a seamless adoption experience and tangible benefits from day one. As a result of using Agritask, clients see sustainable yield increase and cost savings.
Founded in 2010 and being run bootstrapped till date, Agritask is currently active in 20 countries worldwide and covers more than 50 crop types. The client base includes farmers alongside food and beverage companies, agricultural insurers, input providers and governments or developmental organizations. The company serves some of the most prestigious names in the agriculture industry such as General Mills, Suzano, and Bom Jesus.
In a prepared statement sent to The Tech Portal, Agritask founder Israel Fraier said: “We knew from day one that we need to build an extremely flexible platform that will be able to adjust itself to the clients – and not the other way around. Agritask values and embraces the extensive knowledge of its clients – and integrates their wisdom into the platform. As a side effect, we are also creating the largest library of best practices inside our system.”
Going further, the company intends to use the proceeds from this round to grow its farmer client base in the Americas, while continuing to expand the regional project and insurance sectors globally. For regional projects, the system enables better monitoring, delivery of agronomic services and risk management. For agricultural insurers, it revolutionizes their ability to perform risk analysis at an unprecedented detail. This allows significant cost reduction, more advanced insurance products and deeper penetration in underserved markets. As a result, Agritask improves the wellbeing of farmers, as well as environmental sustainability and food safety.
The vast volume of agronomic data accumulated in Agritask’s platform will lead to the development of new techniques for optimizing crop growth models and agro-economic decisions, benefiting large farmers and smallholders all over the world.
