Alchemist is a venture-backed accelerator focused on accelerating the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises (not consumers). CB Insights rated Alchemist the top accelerator in 2016 based on the median funding rates of its grads (YC was #2). The accelerator’s primary screening criteria is on teams, prioritizing having distinctive technical co-founders. The organization provides seed investment into companies it admits (typically $36K), and provides founders a structured path to traction, fundraising, mentorship, and community throughout a 6-month program. The company's backers include many of the top corporate and VC funds in the Valley -- including Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, GE, next47(Siemens), and Salesforce, among others—the accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures/year. Notable alumni include LaunchDarkly, Rigetti Quantum Computing, mPharma, Matternet, and Mightyhive.

Alchemist Accelerator

Locus Ventures is a seed fund that invests in passionate founders looking to build important, world-changing companies. Its partnership is unique in its wealth of startup founding and operating experience in both Silicon Valley and Asia. It works closely with founders in their portfolio and offers guidance on product design and development, customer acquisition, team-building, and fundraising. Since 2016, its portfolio companies have raised over $300 million in follow-on funding from first-tier VC like Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, NEA, CRV,  DST Partners and Naspers, with an aggregate market cap over $2 billion. Locus Ventures was founded in 2016 by Google, Facebook, and Y Combinator alums.

Locus Ventures

Softline Venture Partners is a corporate venture fund of Softline Group. Since 2008, Softline Venture Partners have invested about US$35 million in 20+ portfolio companies. The amount of investment to one project is from $300 thousand to $3 million. As a stage agnostic investor, the firm works with companies across a wide range of technologies, such as Edtech, HRTech, Cybersecurity, Cloud Services, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things.

Softline Venture Partners

SmartHub is a funding and service platform which connects the best start ups to investors, and supports at every investments.  Service solutions for investors – tailor made venture portfolios: focused pipeline, extensive analysis and research of investment options, deal structuring, legal paper work, quarterly reporting, investment rights protection till exit.  Service solutions for startups – fast communications and feedback, mutually beneficial deal making, strategic development support, networking and consulting at fundraising stage.

SmartHub

Atoia Ventures is a founder-friendly venture fund with a focus on impact investments and diverse founders. Headquartered in Dubai, we invest in EdTech, HRTech, Cybersecurity, CloudServices, AI, IoT, and other startups from seed to round A. We are a fast, transparent, solid, and smart investor. Our experienced team of entrepreneurs has a wealth of experience in finding promising startups and leading them to industry leaders and unicorn levels. We become the founders’ partner in growth by providing infrastructure to fully support startups both operationally and with “smart money” from early seed stages to round A and growth. Atoia Ventures' portfolio includes such incredible companies as EducateOnline, ElectroNeek, xRobotics, CattleCare, and others.

Atoia Ventures

SVG Ventures|THRIVE is an investment and advisory firm that partners with public and private organizations on strategy, innovation and global expansion. Formed in 2010 and based in Silicon Valley, SVG Ventures|THRIVE invests in early stage technology companies.  The SVG Ventures|THRIVE team consists of accomplished technology leaders from all over the globe. With its vast network, SVG gets deeply involved with portfolio companies to support their success.

SVG Ventures

I2BF Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm with a global investment mandate. Established in 2005, I2BF Global Ventures has $400M+ under managment and it is currently investing from its fifth fund. The mission of I2BF Global Ventures is to seek out innovative and competitive companies across SaaS, Hardware Enabled B2B solutions (AI, IoT, AR, VR, robotics, RPA & automation), Digital Healthcare, and New Media, which it believes can lead the path to a brighter future. Since the first investment in 2006, I2BF Global Ventures has successfully backed 60+ startups and exited 12 companies. In keeping with its worldwide investment focus, I2BF Global Ventures retains a team of technology and sector experts in New York, London, and Los Angeles. This impressive team ensures a truly global venture capital strategy and a hands-on management approach.

I2BF Global Ventures

Yellow Rocks! invests in fast-growing early-stage companies with a clear global expansion strategy. The fund is focused on companies that are leveraging disruptive technologies and that are ready to reach $1B. Yellow Rocks! is based in San Francisco & Lisbon and we consider ourselves geo-agnostic. We truly believe that brilliant founders can be found anywhere irrespective of geographical location. That being said right now we are focused on startups from the US and Europe. Yellow Rocks! is formed by successful serial entrepreneurs and investors with a deep understanding of fundraising and company’s development. GPs have a 10+ years of track record in well known organizations (World Bank, IFC, Google, EPAM), universities (MIT, Harvard, Stanford) and startup ecosystems (Y Combinator, TheEngine, TechStars, MassChallenge, 500 startups). Our team is distributed around different countries including the USA, Portugal and Armenia.

Yellow Rocks!

AAL VC is a VC fund founded by a team of experienced technologists and operators and built on top of a diverse tech community of LPs and experts. AAL VC invests in Seed+ companies across North America and Europe, with a focus on deeply technical founders buidling in AI/ML, devtools, cloud, infra, and open source.

AAL VC

Cattle Care

Cattle Care is a video analytics system used on dairy farms. They manage the activities in a milking parlor. Their software connects to an already-installed security camera at a dairy, records video of a milking shift, and then uploads it for processing on the company's servers. The firm's video analytics algorithms can identify variations from what a producer would anticipate seeing in a functioning milking parlor.

The company focuses on maintaining detailed information on cattle and allows early detection of diseases, which has been a major contributor to losses for most farmers. The company’s product is simply video analytics for dairy farm operations. This involves camera surveillance of cattle and the use of AI and machine learning to detect disease and continuously track and compare cattle behavior. Farmers can log in to their account and access such information.

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

Cattlecare

Clint Petree on LinkedIn: The Cattle Care Sweepstakes is live through April 30, 2024. Look out for…

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

Cattlecare

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