Founders on funding: Agurotech’s cofounder on data-driven farming, funding challenges, and creating impact

Food security is one of the biggest challenges staring at us right now. With increasing population growth and limited natural resources, addressing this problem is the need of the hour.

While there are a number of agtech startups trying to address this challenge, Dutch startup Agurotech wants to bring a radical change in the way farming is done.

The Amsterdam-based startup offers solutions that enable farmers to transition from their current method of farming to a data-driven future of farming.

Using data and insights, Agurotech helps farmers to efficiently use resources such as water.

This week, Agurotech raised €1.5M in Series A funding from ROM InWest and Navus Ventures to fuel data-driven arable farming.

Every month, we talk to a founder on their quest for investment, and Agurotech co-founder Joëlle van den Brand’s mission to impact the farming industry is infectious.

What is Agurotech?

Food security crisis is not a distant challenge but an ongoing one exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and trade-related policies imposed by countries.

The mid-year update of the Global Report on Food Crisis 2022 reveals up to 205 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity and be in need of urgent assistance in 45 countries.

One solution to this problem would be to increase production, but arable land is not only shrinking but is facing human-induced threats such as rapid urbanisation, mining, farming, and ranching cattle trigger land degradation.

All these activities cause damage to the nutrient holding capacity of the land and over time, make it impossible to conduct farming on the land.

Joëlle van den Brand, who has a MS in Mathematical Economics from Maastricht University, sees this challenge not only as a tech problem but also as a data problem.

“There is most likely not one solution for this challenge,” she says. “It will be a combination of more sustainable farming practices, innovation, better use of technology, perhaps a change of diet, more sustainable logistics and so on.”

This early realisation of how to overcome this food insecurity drove Joëlle van den Brand to co-found Agurotech with Lilia Planjyan.

The Dutch startup develops, produces, and delivers hardware and software solutions to help farmers with sustainable and data-driven farming.

Its hardware and software solutions include sensor technology, weather stations, and applications that offer farmers real-time insight into the conditions of their fields and data that tells farmers what their crops need for optimal growth.

“The intuitive software provides farmers with real-time insights into soil conditions, local weather conditions, and AI-powered predictions,” she explains.

The end result of deploying Agurotech’s hardware and software solutions is that farmers improve their yield and use resources more efficiently.

Imagine a farmer growing more crops in the same field while also using less water and other resources. Agurotech makes that happen.

Impacting the farming industry

The traditional farming is mostly done based on intuition, experience, and what Joëlle calls “gut feeling.”

She says farmers do not base their decisions on facts or data, which leads to either under or over application of resources and productivity loss.

With 80 per cent of the world dealing with water scarcity, the farming industry is facing the threat of drought and even the land becoming arid.

“Some parts of the world cannot farm the same crops as they used to, due to water shortages,” Joëlle says.

In addition to these challenges, farmers are also pushed to adopt more sustainable farming practices.

To overcome the natural challenge and also become sustainable, farmers are turning towards data-driven or precision farming technologies.

“There is a big impact that can be made by enabling the farming industry to apply more data-driven ways of working,” Joëlle says.

There are hundreds of millions of farmers globally, who still rely on traditional farming.

For Agurotech’s founders, their impact on the farming industry will come in the form of technology that farmers want to use, not only to improve their business model but also contribute to sustainability goals.

Data is everything

In our hyper-connected world, everything is data except when it isn’t. Even in farming, everything is data and learning about the breadth of that data from Agurotech is astonishing.

Joëlle tells Silicon Canals that Agurotech’s sensors measure electrical conductivity, soil moisture, and soil temperature at multiple depths.

The weather stations that Agurotech offers to farmers measure local weather conditions such as temperature, rainfall, humidity, and temperature.

Once the data is collected, Agurotech combines it with agricultural models and informs farmers “whether or not the circumstances in the fields allow for optimal crop growth.”

It doesn’t just stop there. The software solution also helps farmers with information they can use to increase crop yields.

“Agurotech advises farmers on whether their soils need more irrigation, if the soil has a good salinity level and what the predicted soil moisture conditions will be,” adds Joëlle.

All that data wouldn’t be possible without the sensors and weather stations that Agurotech designs in-house.

While designing its sensors and weather stations, Agurotech faced the challenge that every other company faced during COVID-19 pandemic: supply chain disruption.

Joëlle says some parts that were part of their prototype had a waiting time of over 50 weeks and as a startup, Agurotech didn’t have the leverage of an established tech company like Apple to expedite the delivery or build its own inventory.

“This forced us to redesign critical parts of our technology to allow it to fit more available components,” adds Joëlle.

This redesign process cost Agurotech about half a year’s time but the journey is an example of how to overcome complex problems with simpler solutions.

Fundraising with a mission

At Silicon Canals, we have documented the struggle of Dutch startups to raise early-stage funding extensively.

This funding becomes even more challenging if you are an impact startup or startup in a field like agtech.

Even Agurotech faced some challenges while going ahead with its Series A funding round.

Joëlle does not mince words when she says that investors considered early-stage startups with a combination of hardware and the farming industry to be risky.

She adds, “They often required several proof points which were challenging to give in 2.5 years time.”

For Joëlle and Lilia, every setback is a learning experience and this experience made them look for an investor with good strategic fit, right market experience, and knowledge.

They found partners in ROM InWest and Navus Ventures, with whom they see an opportunity to build a strong partnership.

“The two investors we found complement each other and are very supportive of our business plan,” says Joëlle.

ROM InWest recently backed tex.tracer, which is another female-led Dutch startup trying to impact the fashion industry to reach its sustainability goals.

Joëlle says they don’t have a concrete plan to raise additional funds but does see a potential to grow faster with a second round.

Future of Agurotech and data-driven farming

One of the things that Agurotech is doing differently is allowing farmers to see its tech in action and decide for themselves.

“There is a lot at stake for farmers when it comes to their harvest and they do not easily want to experiment with technologies that can potentially put their yield at risk,” says Joëlle.

“We believe in giving farmers the facts that they need to support decision making and provide them with actionable advice that is specific to their soil and plant type,” she adds.

This process had led to Agurotech spending a lot of time on interpreting its sensor measurements and adding concrete value to the daily operations of farmers.

Like many other industries, the agtech industry is also male dominated but like other Dutch female founders, Joëlle does not see it as being male or female.

She says it is ultimately about building the best product and suggests female founders should address any “female specific” challenges directly with investors.

With €1.5M at its disposal, Agurotech now plans to scale up its technology and distribution.

The startup is also looking to build strong partnerships with different industry players to ramp up market entry and distribution.

It also plans to grow internationally but aims to stay rooted in research and development chops.

“We will continue to develop innovative solutions to help the farming industry be more effective, efficient and sustainable,” says Joëlle.