4FO Ventures

Verve Ventures is a European startup investment platform for qualified and institutional investors. Their fully digital platform enables private investors to build a diversified portfolio with investments starting at CHF/EUR 10'000. Since its launch in 2010, Verve Ventures has invested more than EUR 130 million in over 100 startups. Their community consists of 5’000 registered qualified private investors, family offices, and pension funds. Several institutional investors such as a large Swiss pension fund and numerous corporates also rely on their expertise to invest in promising startups. Verve Ventures is backed by Switzerland's third-largest bank, Zürcher Kantonalbank. They have a dedicated investment team based in Zurich, Lausanne, Berlin, Paris, and Cambridge, that screens thousands of startups each year and selects the top 1% after a rigorous due diligence process. They are reshaping the European venture capital landscape and granting investors superior access to this traditionally intransparent asset class. They source the best deals, and structure rounds, and enable their investors to participate in competitive startup deals.

Verve Ventures

Business Angels Switzerland (BAS) is an association giving young entrepreneurs the opportunity to present their projects and start-up companies to seasoned investors and successful entrepreneurs. The aim of the presentation is to obtain financing for the project, coaching, or both.  The association's 69 members are split into two sections: the Swiss-German one, based in Zurich, and the Suisse Romande one, based in Lausanne. BAS is neither an investment fund nor a holding company: the decisions to invest are made by its members on a personal basis. BAS is thus not involved at all in its members’ investments.

Business Angels Switzerland (BAS)

BASF Venture Capital is the corporate venture capital arm of BASF Group. They invest worldwide in promising young enterprises relevant to BASF’s current and future business fields and also in funds. Besides innovations in the fields of chemistry, new materials and sustainability, their areas of focus include digitization and new business models. They support their portfolio companies through selective interactions with the global research, partnership and customer networks of the BASF Group. They are headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany and have offices in San Francisco, Boston, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and Tel Aviv.

BASF Venture Capital

Capagro is the French leading venture capital fund dedicated to the Food and Ag industries. It was created in 2014 and has 124 M€ under management. Feeding a sustainable planet and maximizing value creation across the entire agri-food chain is its core focus. Capagro has pioneered a sector-based and independent approach that brings out the best of its scientific and business expertise. The fund leverages its unique network of industrial partners, made of key players in the agri-food value chain, to benefit its portfolio companies. Capagro invests to accelerate the development of European FoodTech and AgTech companies and facilitates the adoption of innovative solutions for stakeholders in those sectors. Capagro's team of seasoned investors is unique in combining strong sector expertise with a wide range of international experience.

Capagro

Swisscom Ventures is an venture capital arm of Swisscom AG, that specializes in early stage tech investments founded in 2007. Swisscom Ventures invests in growth companies with emerging business models and technologies of strategic relevance to Swisscom's core business. As a value-add investor, Swisscom brings its investees the technical expertise and strategic insights of an incumbent telecom operator. We act as a bridge to Swisscom's operational business units, which portfolio companies can also leverage as a test environment for their products and services. Swisscom Ventures seeks minority stakes in companies related to the information/communications/entertainment space.

Swisscom Ventures

AQTON is an investment holding company owned by the businessman Stefan Quandt and registered in Bad Homburg , Germany. As an entrepreneur in the fourth generation Stefan Quandt pursues a long-term investment approach to all his equity holdings. AQTON currently has holdings in four sectors: the automotive industry, digital security & identity protection, photovoltaics & smart grids, and credit rating.

Aqton SE

Cibus Fund is an investment firm that specializes in private equity funds advised by ADM Capital. Cibus Fund was founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, England.

Cibus Fund

We invest in growth companies in the ''late-stage venture/growth capital'' phase, focussed on the technology and healthtech sectors.

Swisscanto Private Equity

At Flexstone Partners, they take a truly different approach to private investments. Clients can take advantage of private equity, real estate, private debt, and infrastructure solutions, specific expertise in the hard-to-access small- and mid-cap market, and an unparalleled level of personalized service.

Flexstone Partners

Yara Growth Ventures is the venture investment team within Yara International ASA. The Yara Growth Ventures team invests in disruptive startups in the agri-food industry globally in order to advance the mission of responsibly feeding the world and protecting the planet. Learn more at www.yaragrowthventures.com

Yara Growth Ventures

Ecorobotix

Ecorobotix sells AI based plant-by-plant recognition and ultra-high precision crop-treatment solutions that reduce the environmental impact of modern agriculture. The main product is ARA, a plant recognition system and ultra-high precision sprayer that reduces the chemical used in the field by 70-95% dramatically reducing farmers costs and increasing crop yields.

Based in Switzerland, ecoRobotix manufactures AI-powered precision farming robots with low environmental impact. ecoRobotix products include a high-precision spraying robot called ARA and an autonomous, solar-powered weed-killing robot called AVO. The company claims that using its robots helps farmers save 95% of plant protection products and increase crop yield by 5-10%. ecoRobotix also states that its robots are 30% cheaper than conventional sprayers and will generate positive ROI within a five-year period. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26704">February 2024</a>, The company has appointed Dominique Mégret as its new CEO.

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

Ecorobotix Develops New Crop Algorithms for its AI-Powered Software

Based in Switzerland, ecoRobotix manufactures AI-powered precision farming robots with low environmental impact. ecoRobotix products include a high-precision spraying robot called ARA and an autonomous, solar-powered weed-killing robot called AVO. The company claims that using its robots helps farmers save 95% of plant protection products and increase crop yield by 5-10%. ecoRobotix also states that its robots are 30% cheaper than conventional sprayers and will generate positive ROI within a five-year period. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26704">February 2024</a>, The company has appointed Dominique Mégret as its new CEO.The company has launched its high-precision spraying robot, ARA, in North America, with its initial launch in Canada in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23405">May 2023</a> and by <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21099">August 2023</a>, ecoRobotix has expanded its high-precision spraying robot ARA to the US. ecoRobotix has announced developing the ongoing development of its newest <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/05/07/2876414/0/en/Ecorobotix-Develops-New-Crop-Algorithms-for-its-AI-Powered-Software.html">AI software algorithms</a>, which mark a significant advancement in crop compatibility, offering new application possibilities for the ARA ultra-high precision sprayer.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18383">May 2023</a>, ecoRobotix has raised CHF 46 million (~USD 52 million) in funding to support its expansion into new and existing markets, leverage the commercial success of ARA (the company’s high-precision spraying robot) in Europe, and accelerate the development of new products.Previously, In June 2021, the company also raised USD 14.7 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to USD 37.8 million. The Series C was earmarked for accelerating production of the company’s ARA plant protection spraying machine, expanding sales across Europe, developing advanced autonomous spraying solutions, and introducing cloud-based services. Swisscom is expected to collaborate with ecoRobotix on these new cloud services including 5G capabilities. ecoRobotix reported in June 2021 that its product is gaining traction in Europe, with sales tripling in the first half of the year.

Israeli startup Taranis, focuses on providing a complete digital agronomy solution to farmers using aerial imagery technology across the US, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, and Australia. The company now monitors more than 20 million acres globally, 50% of which is located within the US.&nbsp;The startup captures aerial images using UAVs, which can be analyzed and compared using its own platform, and allows farmers to make precise decisions about planting. The company also operates an area called the “AgroBrain”, which allows precise identification of crop issues. The company claims to account for 70% of the global crop market and equips farmers with the tools to address issues in real time. Similar to peers like Ceres Imaging, Taranis has partnered with incumbent players like John Deere, Syngenta, BASF, and Climate Field View to expand its product reach. As such, Taranis is regarded as a promising startup in global precision agriculture.&nbsp;In 2018, the company expanded its footprint in the US when it acquired Mavrx, a US startup providing aerial imagery solutions to local farmers. Mavrx ran into financial difficulties and consolidation of the two companies yielded attractive opportunities. The consolidation allowed Taranis to integrate Mavrx’s product (full field imagery product with highest resolution on the market) into its platform, thereby fulfilling Taranis’ aim of providing a complete solution. The acquisition strengthened Taranis' offering rather than differentiating it. Taranis believes that further consolidation is likely with imagery and AI solutions.&nbsp;In July 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the company raised USD 30 million in Series C funding. Key Investors included Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Micron Ventures, and Vertex Ventures Israel. The company expects to use the funds to create more relevant scouting products for growers through its platform and to also look towards expanding into Asia.&nbsp;Previously in January 2023, Taranis introduced <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/taranis-introduces-acreforward-setting-a-new-standard-for-crop-intelligence-301734306.html">AcreForward</a> which provides unprecedented leaf-level insights into growers' crops at higher frequency throughout the season and captures opportunities in every acre to help ag retailers drive more value from every acre. In <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/taranis-launches-ag-assistant-to-transform-farm-decision-making-302198624.html">July 2024</a>, The company has introduced Ag assistant, powered by a generative AI model that integrates data sources from various modalities – including images, text and audio – and with a profound understanding of agronomy.

Taranis

Based in Canada, TELUS Agriculture offers integrated agriculture software solutions to increase profits of farmers and ranchers, agri-businesses, and agri-food, consumer goods and retail companies. Some of the farm management software solutions provided by the company are: Farm at Hand (crop management platform), TKXS (data management), Agrian (precision and informed decision making)&nbsp; and Muddy Boots (food traceability and supply chain management). As of July 2021, TELUS provides its solutions across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Armenia, Germany, China, and Australia.In July 2021, TELUS along with Rabobank, a Dutch food and agriculture bank, acquired Conservis to deliver a more robust Conservis platform to cater a diverse range of crops and livestock leveraging the former’s know-how and relationships across the food industry value chain and the latter’s portfolio of innovative digital farming technologies and solutions.&nbsp;Founded in 2009, Conservis via its web and mobile platform, provides farmers with planning tools, real-time data capture, and analytics to support better decision making and efficient reporting. Having launched as a permanent crop management platform for tree nuts, the platform has expanded its capabilities to fit crop types such as citrus and grapes.&nbsp; Since 2018, Rabo AgriFinance, a Rabobank subsidiary, has also been a development partner for Conservis to enhance the platform’s financial reporting capabilities.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27853">March 2024</a>, The company&nbsp; has completed the acquisition of Proagrica, a provider of agronomic and business data solutions.Key customers and partnershipsIn <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/decisive-farming-telus-agriculture-grainfox-140000751.html">October 2023</a>, The company has partnered with GrainFox announced a new partnership to bring more digital grain trade and sell options to Canadian farmers, providing technology-based solutions to support the ongoing transformation of Canada’s agriculture industry.

TELUS  Agriculture

Arable was established with the aim of providing measurements, insight, and predictions that enable growers to address risks with crop management. The key market of focus has been the US, though the company’s product has been used in 39 different countries.The company provides real-time data updates on irrigation and weather, such as reports on plants and crop management, to allow users to make informed decisions, while also being able to precisely measure different farming-related data such as temperature and humidity. Thus, the company falls under the categories of precision and smart farming.The company’s product, Arable Mark, is an irrigation management tool whichsynthesizes climate, plant, and soil data to produce visualizations. Through a web dashboard and smartphone app, Arable Mark exposes precipitation, crop water deficit, soil moisture, chilling hours, and other metrics gathered from sensors. Customers using Arable’s platform have reportedly shown to reduce irrigation by upto 50% and pesticide usage by 15%. In May 2023, the company commercially introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18120">Arable Mark 3 </a>which includes a 5 MP camera, an optional wind anemometer, and advanced plant and environmental sensing capabilities.The company’s customer base is quite broad in the agriculture value chain, and includes farmers, advisors, insurers, processors, lenders, and governments that find Arable useful to gauge facts on the ground in real time, and in turn reduce risk and increase certainty with decision making.Key customers and partnershipsAs of July 2022, the company serves over 400 customers across 40 countries, and has partnered with agribusiness players like <a href="https://www.bayer.com/en/">Bayer </a>, <a href="http://basf.com/">BASF </a>, and <a href="https://www.nutrien.com/">Nutrien </a>, as well as large consumer food companies such as <a href="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&amp;ai=DChcSEwjZmt7Vz8HsAhVB5bMKHZDRA-QYABAAGgJxbg&amp;ohost=www.google.com&amp;cid=CAESQOD2vDo-TeLvYzetoyv9iGSw4AnEyiwfscK9vNdjRJ0JPSZXAOBHMYcmrQDPGFTkEl8yzB3t5tB0WHRWzqyKtJE&amp;sig=AOD64_30Xpx6__U8VgKUxkOFpPHuSo99bw&amp;q&amp;adurl&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj--M3Vz8HsAhVCLKwKHa4MAgUQ0Qx6BAgUEAE">Mars </a>, <a href="https://www.lambweston.com/">Lamb Weston </a>, and <a href="https://www.tweglobal.com/">Treasury Wine Estates </a>, as well as fellow startups like <a href="https://www.planet.com/">Planet </a>, <a href="https://www.terramera.com/">Terramera </a>, and <a href="https://www.pivotbio.com/">Pivot Bio </a>primarily to expand the reach of its platform.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32961">August 2024</a>, Arable collaborated with Google to leverage agritech to promote water conservation and crop productivity among Nebraska farms.Funding and financials<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11852">In July 2022 </a>, Arable raised USD 40 million in Series C funding led by Galvanize Climate Solutions to support product development, delivery of new services, and international expansion.Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the company’s sales grew by 4x during 2020 and 2022, while reporting a 300% sales growth in Q3 2020 alone.

Arable

The company’s aerial spectral imagery helps growers optimize water and fertilizer application, focusing on the midstream of the agriculture value chain. The company uses low-flying planes to capture and process these aerial spectral images. The images provide accurate and real-time information on the water and nutrient status of every plant in the field. The company has been focusing on the US and Australia.&nbsp;Its technology can be applied to vineyards, orchards, and row crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat. The company is more of a Data-as-a-Service organisation where the grower will pay Ceres Imaging by the acre and receive imagery and necessary support to integrate the information with broader crop management practices. The company has partnered with established companies like John Deere and Climate FieldView, which find that Ceres Imaging’s solutions (pest and disease detection weeks ahead of human detection) align with their products and services.&nbsp;In <a href="https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2023/03/203925-ai-enhanced-data-analytics-product-suite-ceres-imaging-now-available-to-agriculture-insurers-lenders/">March 2023</a>, The company has unveiled Risk Solutions product suite, designed to power the next generation of risk models for insurers and lenders.In 2019, Ceres Imaging significantly expanded its operations with irrigated row crops throughout the central and western US.&nbsp;During the period, Ceres also nearly doubled its share of the&nbsp;California&nbsp;specialty crop market, going from managing 10% to 18% of all specialty crop acres in the state.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16918">March 2023</a>, The company also expanded its services to Portugal and Spain.

Ceres Imaging

<div>
 
 SWIIM (Sustainable Water and Innovative Irrigation Management) System, with the support of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and various US grant universities, operates multi-patented technology developed to manage agricultural water budgets, allowing farmers to efficiently allocate water. The company focuses on the midstream of the agricultural value chain, supporting farmers through their harvesting process. The company’s technology is being widely deployed across western US states.
 
 
 The company provides a device that integrates with existing water measurement tools such as water gauges and analyzes real-time water usage via telemetry, offering farmers information on exactly how much water is used for crops and how much goes back into the ground.
 
 
 The company’s system can be used for any crop and irrigation system, lending its product flexibility and scope for potential expansion beyond the US. 
 
 
 In 2018, SWIIM acquired farm management software OnFarm Systems, which operates a customizable dashboard presenting data collected from a range of different internet of things (IoT) sources (weather, pest control, crop models) on any online device. The acquisition provided SWIIM customers with a differentiated product. Moreover, OnFarm’s 500 clients across the United States, Europe, and Asia at the time were accessible to SWIIM.  
 
 
 In 2020, SWIIM issued its own certification to farmers for the sustainable use of water, conveying to consumers that produce was grown with sustainable water management practices. In addition, SWIIM also introduced its “Certified Water Balance Report”, providing growers with an audited account of their water use. The company’s niche focus on water management, alongside its efforts at differentiation via acquisitions, arms it with potential to broaden its reach.
 
 
 
</div>

SWIIM Systems

Start-ups providing smart machinery such as agricultural robots and autonomous tractors, as well as other smart hardware devices for crop and livestock management.

Operators of marketplaces connecting farmers, suppliers, buyers, experts and advisors to streamline the farming process.

Start-ups offering software and related hardware solutions for crop operation, crop modelling, weather forecasting, soil analysis, and overall irrigation management using sensors, big data, AI and machine learning.

Startups offering software and related hardware solutions that facilitate real time data tracking and sharing on animal weight, future weight forecasts, and animal health and behavioural analysis using RFID tags, sensors, big data, AI and machine learning.

Start-ups offering drone or satellite imagery to measure and monitor fields, spray pesticides, accurately present biological parameters, control the quality of sowing, etc.

Crop and livestock monitoring startups use AI for their analytics platform

Uses robots for harvesting, weeding, and related agricultural purposes

Uses data analytics and sensors and related technologies to provide crop and livestock monitoring insights

Provides solutions that maximizes efficiency throughout the agriculture value chain

IoT-enabled sensors are used in machinery and equipment to help with data collection

<div>
 Ecorobotix, a Swiss startup creating environment-friendly, AI-based farming robots, has named Dominique Mégret as its new CEO. Mégret has 17 years of experience with Swisscom Ventures, which he helped grow to a value of over USD 600 million with 90 investments. He co-founded Kick-Start Ventures and served on Ecorobotix's board for two years prior to his appointment.
</div>

Ecorobotix

EDGE Insights

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless