January 4, 2018

Australian agtech startup FluroSat announced it has raised A$1.5 million (US$1.2 million) in funding through a round including CSIRO Main Sequence Ventures, AirTree Ventures, and the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) of Australia. The startup also has secured a number of grants with the assistance of Cicada Innovations and its Growlab accelerator.

Born out of the “Inventing the Future” course at the University of Sydney, and founded by Anastasia Volkova and Malcolm Ramsey, FluroSat employs remote sensing technology and hyperspectral cameras in conjunction with hand-held devices, drones, or satellites to closely monitor crop conditions, generating information that can be critical to agronomists and farmers. Images are analyzed to determine crop health, diagnose problems before they become unmanageable, and to detect water or nutrition deficits, weed or pest issues, or heat stress.

FluroSat, which charges its customers a per-hectare fee,  envisions a future for the farming industry where a farmer would be supplied with critical data on a daily basis, enabling constant informed decision making from planting to harvest.

“We believe that receiving the actionable insights required to manage a farm should be as easy as viewing your morning news feed. Our goal is to give growers and agronomists the cues to make decisions that directly affect ROI,” Volkova told Anthill Online.

Aussie Agtech

Agtech has been consistently gaining a greater foothold in the Australian landscape. In September 2016, Australia’s National Famers’ Federation partnered with financial advisory firm, Findex, to launch a $10 million agtech fund and accelerator program. The initiative, run by the organization SproutX, and headed up by former wool and beef farmer Sam Threthewey has been financially backed by the government of Victoria, which committed $1 million to the venture, along with additional backers, Ruralco and Artesian Venture Partners.

The announcement of the SproutX fund came only days after StartupAUS, Australia’s top start-up body, released Powering Growth: Realizing the Potential of AgTech for Australia, a report commissioned by StartupAUS, KPMG, Commonwealth Bank, and the Queensland government that determined that agtech is a critical factor if Australia’s agricultural sector is to reach its goal of becoming a $100 billion industry by 2030. However, the report goes on to state that there is a dire lack of investment, national strategy, and domestic opportunity in the space.

Exactly one year later, SparkLabs Group, one of the top accelerator groups in Asia, announced it was partnering with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries to launch SparkLabs Cultiv8, a $10 million agtech accelerator to be headquartered in Orange, Australia. The accelerator will be going live in March 2018.

“We have an extremely valuable opportunity here to develop technologies that make a real difference to the economy’s bottom line, while also helping rural Australia realise [sic] the economic benefits of the digital technology revolution,” said Alex McCauley, chief executive with StartupAUS, said upon the announcement of the launch.

Indicative of the potential for FluroSat is Australian agtech startup The Yield, which in April 2017 announced it had raised a $6.5 million Series A backed by global manufacturing companies Bosch, KPMG, and by AgFunder.

Based in Tasmania, The Yield’s Sensing+ microclimate system uses sensors, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics, along with technologies developed by Microsoft, Bosch, and Intel to help producers make informed decisions regarding the management of their operations.

“Australia is the perfect breeding ground for agtech innovation, because our conditions are so tough,” said Ros Harvey, founder and managing director of The Yield at the time. “Growers are innovative because they need to be. Helping them to solve real problems, while creating reliable and accurate technology they can use day in, day out, is essential.”

The ability of FluroSat’s technology to solve real problems is what attracted investors.
“The future of farming is precision agriculture. Identifying the perfect blend of water, fertiliser and/or herbicide on an individual plant-by-plant basis is a perfect challenge for computer vision and machine learning. The result will be hugely improved crop yields,” said John Henderson, partner at AirTree Ventures, reported Dynamic Business. “We are excited to be supporting Anastasia and the FluroSat team as they build the toolset for tomorrow’s farmers.”

-Lynda Kiernan