Crowdcube is an equity crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs of start-ups and growing businesses. Crowdcube enables individuals to invest or loan in small companies in return for equity or an annual return. As an investment crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube enables entrepreneurs to raise finance with the added benefit of being backed by the crowd. For investors, Crowdcube provides a way to handpick a stake in an innovative business that traditionally would have been restricted to corporate investors. Since Crowdcube first pioneered equity crowdfunding in 2011, a total of £300m has been invested through the platform from a crowd of over 390,000 investors, with more than £230m successfully invested in 520 raises. Businesses like the challenger bank Monzo, which raised £1 million in a record-breaking 96 seconds, as well as household brand names such as River Cottage and the Eden Project along with venture capital-backed businesses such as JustPark, eMoov, Sugru and Chip have all successfully raised growth funding from the crowd.

Crowdcube

The Future Fund is provides government loans to UK-based companies ranging from £125,000 to £5 million.

The Future Fund

Next generation early stage tech investing, bridging Europe and the USA. 7percent Ventures invest in early stage tech startups which represent billion dollar opportunities.  They are not interested in startups which iterate a market, they are interested in startups that transform them. Change is the prerequisite of disruption. To monopolize a market they believe you must fundamentally disrupt it. To do that, you must have a product which solves a painful problem in a better way than existing solutions or serves a need that is not currently being satisfied. They are sector agnostic, although they do not invest in areas that they do not understand or where they cannot add value.  They will not invest in any business –however good it might be—which is not a billion dollar opportunity.  Your startup must doing something which is scalable enough in a large enough market for a future valuation of $1bn to be possible.

7percent Ventures

The Small Robot Company

The Small Robot Company has built a team from Deep Mind, Dyson, IBM, Virgin Galactic and Formula 1 to revolutionise the way that technology is used to create food, by delivering per plant farming for the world’s biggest crops. This radical approach is focused on using lightweight autonomous vehicles providing near-real time view of each crop plant as it grows through the season. This is called per plant intelligence. We then using this view to deliver precise, timely interventions to make that plant reach its full potential. This is called per plant action. By doing this, we are stripping out all the inefficiencies and vast overuse of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertiliser.  …And because we do not disturb or compact the soil, we allow the ecosystem of a field to do what it does best. Fix itself. Per plant intelligence is commercially available now for UK farmers, and some of the world’s largest providers of crop seed, nutrients and protection. Per plant action will come online from October 2022.

Based in the UK, Small Robot Company (SRC) focuses on providing per-plant farming via its small robots dubbed Tom, Dick, and Harry. Per-plant farming utilises data points on each plant and square metre of soil rather than considering the field as a whole. The company operates a Farming as a Service business model. The crop management service deploys robots that utilise artificial intelligence to monitor crop health, kill weeds without chemicals, and efficiently plant crops. The robot Tom delivers commercial weed mapping services to UK farms (covers 20 hectares per day) while Dick provides in-field demonstrations of non-chemical weeding capabilities (zero chemical use). Harry is still being brought up to Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4). The company also operates an AI platform Wilma, which is equipped with algorithms facilitating crop management. The company claims that its robots reduce energy consumption by 90%. It also revealed that 110 farmers have formally expressed interest in its services with 60 having made deposits.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

Small Robot Company

Based in the UK, Small Robot Company (SRC) focuses on providing per-plant farming via its small robots dubbed Tom, Dick, and Harry. Per-plant farming utilises data points on each plant and square metre of soil rather than considering the field as a whole. The company operates a Farming as a Service business model. The crop management service deploys robots that utilise artificial intelligence to monitor crop health, kill weeds without chemicals, and efficiently plant crops. The robot Tom delivers commercial weed mapping services to UK farms (covers 20 hectares per day) while Dick provides in-field demonstrations of non-chemical weeding capabilities (zero chemical use). Harry is still being brought up to Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4). The company also operates an AI platform Wilma, which is equipped with algorithms facilitating crop management. The company claims that its robots reduce energy consumption by 90%. It also revealed that 110 farmers have formally expressed interest in its services with 60 having made deposits.&nbsp;&nbsp;SRC commercialised Tom on 29 April 2021 with plans to operate on more than 100 farms by 2023. Trials conducted on the Tom robot indicate that it can yield around 20 tons of wheat per hectare—well beyond the UK farm average of 8.4 tonnes. The company expects to expand this coverage to around 62,000 hectares spanning the UK, North America, and South America in 2024. Dick is still in its prototype phase.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18317">May 2023</a>, The company has announced that a leading venture capitalist investor has pulled out of the company's planned funding round, citing agriculture as being too risky. To stabilize the situation, a crowdfunding <a href="https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/save-small">#SaveSmall </a>pledge campaign was launched which secured GBP 1.03 million(~USD 1.3 million as of May 9, 2023 in investment pledges.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20547">July 2023</a>, The company has announced its first commercial sale of&nbsp; “Tom v4” AgriTech robot to the National Robotarium, a center for robotics and AI, based at Heriot-Watt University's Edinburgh campus, Scotland, expected to be employed to scan agricultural fields for scientific crop research. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26322">February 2024</a>, The Small Robot Company has entered liquidation as it could not secure the necessary investment for scaling.

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.
 
 
 
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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>
 
 Small Robot Company, a company that offers per-plant farming through its Tom, Dick, and Harry Robots, has been liquidated due to inability to secure necessary investment for expansion.
 Kroll has been chosen as an administrator to sell the assets.
 
</div>

Small Robot Company

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