The Israeli agritech startups leading crop innovation
CTech profiles some of the most innovative Israeli startups using AI and machine learning to optimize crop yields, identify pests, and minimize pesticide use
“If you ate today - thank a farmer” is a popular saying, but given recent innovations in the field, Israeli agtech professionals should be acknowledged as well. As dozens of new ventures continue to enter this ‘growing’ field, CTech presents the leading Israeli agricultural technology startups leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize crop yields, identify pests, and minimize pesticide use for the benefit and safety of all.
Name: AgroScout
Founded: 2017
Funding: $11.3M
Founders: Simcha Shore (CEO)
AgroScout, the developer of a platform that collects data to create analytics for actionable insights in crop management, seeks to best leverage AI cloud computing and the availability of low-cost digital imaging to bring efficient, sustainable, and accountable farming to 95% of the 500 million unserved farms of the world. The AgroScout platform offers five layers of interlaced data analysis to counter yield loss. It does so by leveraging user-generated data, collected with off-the-shelf drones and mobile phones. AgroScout eliminates the need for costly drones, field operators and long training. Farmers purchase their own low cost drones and receive minimal training to get started.
Name: Greeneye Technology
Founded: 2017
Funding: $29M
Founders: Nadav Bocher (CEO), Itzhak Khait, Alon Klein Orbak.
Greeneye, which has developed AI-enabled precision spraying technology for agricultural applications, utilizes artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies to transform the weed control process in agriculture, transitioning from the current practice of wasteful spraying of herbicides to accurately detect and spray weeds in real-time. Greeneye’s selective spraying (SSP) system can easily integrate into any agricultural sprayer, by retrofitting existing sprayers or through working in collaboration with sprayer manufacturers to deliver plant-level variable-rate spraying. According to the company, its process is successful in reducing up to 90% of herbicide and chemical usage.
Expanding its technological reach, Greeneye is the first company to launch an AI-based precision spraying system in the U.S., where it has already secured dozens of contracts with farmers in the Midwest.
Name: Taranis
Founded: 2014
Funding: $59.5M
Founders: Ofir Schlam (CEO), Eli Bukchin, Assaf Horowitz, Ayal Karmi.
Agricultural intelligence company Taranis operates fleets of drones and low-flying aerial vehicles capable of capturing ultra-high-resolution imagery mid-flight. Taranis’ artificial intelligence system analyzes these images and aggregates this data as well as data from satellite images to detect early signs of crop diseases, insect infestations, nutrient deficiencies, and other crop risk factors. Taranis’ system can cover an area of 400 dunams (400,000 square meters) in less than 20 minutes, according to the company.
Taranis currently focuses its efforts on assisting sugarcane growing in Brazil and in the midwestern US, where it specializes in open field core crops: corn, soybeans and cotton.
Name: MyCrops
Founded: 2016
Funding: Undisclosed
Founders: Asaf Levy (CEO), Assaf Gavish
MyCrops' technology seeks to promote sustainable agriculture by reducing the use of harmful pesticides. The company has developed a digital platform for farmers that analyzes images of the various crops and uses advanced algorithms. The result is a cut in costs, a reduction in the use of pesticides, and a reduction of up to 62% of the annual loss for farmers. The company's system provides automated plant monitoring 24 hours a day and provides growers with assistance in making decisions based on the findings.
Name: Fermata
Founded: 2018
Funding: $2.5M
Founders: Alastair Monk (CEO), Valeria Kogan
Fermata builds AI-powered decision support systems for precise plant monitoring in greenhouses utilizing computer vision analysis. The startup’s Croptimus platform automatically discovers pests and disease at their earliest stages, helping licensed producers and growers reduce crop loss by 30% and increasing profits while cutting in half the time spent on manual monitoring.
Name: Agritask
Founded: 2010
Funding: $38.8M
Founders: Israel Fraier
Agritask develops an agriculture management SaaS platform that integrates with existing hardware such as on-the-ground sensors and other data sources such as satellite imagery. Its customers are both small and large farmers, food producers and agricultural insurance companies. The platform, which has been successfully deployed in over 35 countries, combines data from multiple sources to offer farmers and agricultural insurers soil management and agricultural insights and can provide suggestions on how to optimize growth for more than 50 different crops. By leveraging information coming from both the field and the air, Agritask helps agri-food businesses manage the growing process in a more calculated and efficient manner.
Name: SupPlant
Founded: 2015
Funding: $52M
Founders: Zohar Ben Ner (President)
Focused on digitally informing irrigation decisions worldwide by generating climate smart irrigation recommendations, SupPlant recently launched an API product, a sensor-less technology that has served 500,000 female maize farmers in Kenya over the last season. SupPlant is making their technology available to these smallholder farmers by changing the basic concept of irrigation methods. The new technology is designed for the world’s 450 million small growers. In 2022, SupPlant aims that over 1 million smallholders in Africa and India will be utilizing its new technology.
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Name: Agmatix
Founded: 2019
Funding: $15M
Founders: Ron Baruchi (CEO), ICL
An agriculture informatics company that develops data-driven solutions for the agriculture industry, Agmatix’s data-driven solutions standardize agronomic data, provide actionable insights for agricultural professionals and growers, improve crop yield, and promote sustainable agriculture.
