Athos Capital has invested €1.2 million (US$1.4 million) in Spain’s Agroptima, a farmland management tech startup that allows farmers and agricultural operation managers to raise efficiency in their day-to-day operations.
Founded by Emilia Villa, a graduate of global academic institution ESADE, Agroptima plans to use the new funding to expand its team, enhance its ability to reach more farmers, and to advance its technology.
“We are very pleased with Agroptima’s recent round of financing for several reasons,” said Fernando Zallo, director of ESADE BAN. “First, it sets a new record for the largest amount of funding ever provided by ESADE BAN investors in a single round. In addition, Agroptima is the initiative of a young businesswoman who is also an alumna of ESADE. This confirms the trend of new entrepreneurs who are creating successful companies just a few years after finishing their education at ESADE. Finally, we are pleased to see a technological solution in a traditional sector – agriculture – that was greatly in need of innovation.”
Using the Agroptima app, farmers can streamline their operations, and gain valuable insight by recording activities such as sowing, chemical applications, and harvesting. Through this single platform, farmers can then go back to download data, notes, and reports that show performance history, crop information, application amounts and schedules, and which provide accounts of traceability.
“When farmers realise that they can have all the data about their fields and their crops at their fingertips, they never go back. We think it is essential to pamper and to listen to our users. We conduct periodic site visits and answer questions by phone or chat with a turnaround time of less than 24 hours,” stated the company in a blog entry announcing the funding. “Our customers are individual farmers, family farms and small and medium-sized agricultural firms that grow row crops such as grains as well as vineyards, fruits, vegetables, olives and nuts.”
Launched after a group of farmers from Cooperativa Agro Igualada noted the need for a simple way to document records and control costs, the Agroptima app is also able to link to functions such as Cerea, a GPS system for self-driving tractors, and envisions a future where their single platform can integrate data from all sources, including sensors. Toward this end, in a matter of months, the company has a planned launch of Agroptima Maps, a suite of tools that gives farmers a visual, map-based way to view their production systems.
Now in its third year, Agroptima claims a client base of 1,700 farmers and agricultural companies managing more than 530,000 hectares of farmland, and expects to see turnover exceed €1 million (US$1.2 million) in the next 12 months. It also has an additional 100,000 users who have downloaded a free trial of the platform.
-Lynda Kierna