April 8, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan

AgroScout, an Israel-based portfolio company of the Trendlines Group, announced the successful close on $3 million in funding to support its AI-driven crop protein solutions platform. 

The round was led by Kibbutz Yiron, and included crowdfunding platform Exit Valley, Agriline, The Trendlines Group, and grants from the Israel Innovation Authority and the BIRD Foundation.

The FAO states that between 20-40 percent of agricultural yields are lost to disease and pests. Traditionally, farmers and agronomists have manually and visually spot-checked fields every few days, however, this usually results in limited coverage of between five to 10 percent, if scouting is even done at all. As a result, issues are often not detected until well advanced, requiring large volumes of agro-chemicals to treat the problem.

Founded in 2017 in Israeli’s Western Galilee, AgroScout’s solution integrates external data gathered by drones, weather satellites, and local sensors, with AI software, computer vision, and deep learning to autonomously and accurately detect, identify, and monitor pest, disease, and other agronomic events at the leaf level across field crops. This data is then analyzed using AgroScout’s proprietary algorithms and the results are uploaded to the cloud to be accessed at will.

“To maximize yields, mitigate disease and loss of produce, farmers have to incorporate advanced technology in their daily work,” said Shalom Simchon, Kibbutz Yiron’s economic committee chairman. “We are excited about AgroScout’s abilities to provide early detection of pests, disease, and other risks for crops, enabling real-time farmer interventions to decrease pesticide use, lower production costs and grow produce in a more sustainable way.”

AgroScout is a member of Oracle for Startups – an initiative by Oracle to support innovators on a global scale – and is an early adopter of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Science. This funding, according to Simcha Shore, CEO of AgroScout, will enable the company to strengthen this relationship, and drive its ability to offer flexible, cutting-edge solutions to farmers.

“The investment from a strategic investor such as Kibbutz Yiron, an agribusiness with a deep understanding of the sector’s needs, is a vote of confidence in our technology and approach,” said Shore.

“The funding will allow us to expand our market reach significantly and broaden our services to our customers, offering them a viable and valuable solution to one of the most urgent issues facing farmers today. We expect this new round to enable us to deepen our strong relationship with Oracle, to offer a flexible, cutting-edge AI solution for farmers, enabling them to increase their yields and contribute to global food security for all.” 

The environmental benefits and increased sustainability brought to bear by AgroScout’s technology were also a draw for round participant Agriline, an investment vehicle owned by a trust of which Vincent Tchenguiz, the controlling shareholder of Trendlines’, is a discretionary beneficiary.

“We believe that companies like AgroScout, which Agriline has invested in, have tremendous potential to significantly impact and optimize more sustainable food production, that, in the long run, will reduce CO2 and other pollutants that are contributing so much to the global warming crisis. We develop financial models – this is our expertise, these days we are in the process of developing a new financial model. This investment is strategic and in line with our model known as the ‘Earth Ecosystem’,” said Tchenguiz.

AgroScout received another vote of confidence last year, when it earned an award of excellence by the Israel Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development. In December 2019 the company was conditionally granted $1 million from the BIRD Foundation for a project between AgroScout and Bird Stop – a docking system technology from Silicon Valley – to create a fully autonomous solution for the field that can gather unprecedented daily data. Pilot projects are currently underway in Latin America with PepsiCo and its growers, and as commercial sales have  begun in the U.S., Israel, and Latin America, the solution will be deployed this summer for a North American potato processor.

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.