Japanese agtech firm, Farmnote, has raised US$1.7 million in a round of fundraising involving Tokyo-based trading company, Kanematsu, Kanematsu Agritech, Japanese gaming company, Gree, Executive Vice President and co-founder of Colopl, Kotaro Chiba, Six Apart CTO Daiji Hirata, and an additional undisclosed Japanese company.
Founded in 2013 and located in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, Farmnote has developed a system using wearable sensor devices and a cloud-based system designed to streamline and increase efficiency in Japan’s livestock industry.
Farmnote supplies the cloud platform for free to small scale livestock operations of less than 100 head, or 93% of Japan’s total livestock sector. Operations with more than 100 head of cattle must subscribe to the premium plan.
“We are currently developing sensor devices collecting data on the cattle. Unlike typical wearable devices for humans, our unit has to be fault tolerant with a long-lasting battery because it is attached to animals,” says Farmnote founder, Shinya Kobayashi, adding, “We will provide dairy and livestock farmers using our cloud service with this sensor device. We are not yet sure if we can sell it via one-time payment or need to adopt a monthly subscriptions model. However, our device at any rate will be easy to install so that livestock owners can handle it by themselves, without professional set-up.”
The wearable sensors on the animals will transmit data via radio waves to ‘gateway’ stations located in multiple locations on the ranch to transmit behavioral information wirelessly to the owner or manager’s smartphone.
The company will use the fresh capital to advance the development of its wearable devices and peripherals used in the monitoring of livestock, particularly, dairy cows, to expand its scientific team, and toward expanding their application along the value chain.
“The Japanese livestock market is larger than rice farming and valued at about US$20 billion,” says Kobayashi. “Consolidated with other businesses, like feed producers or distribution channels for livestock, the market can be considered three or four times bigger. Starting with the services for the livestock industry, we want to collect data on animals and crops in the global farming market of the future.”