In case you missed it … awards for 'breakthrough' cow tech and new acceleration commitments
Plus, another virtual fence company begins on-farm trials
Several cow tech companies won awards this week as technology stars or breakthrough agtech.
First, a brand new agtech award that aims to validate agtech that’s truly making a difference announced the winners of the first-ever Breakthrough AgTech Awards.
The program was open to all individuals, companies and organizations involved in producing publicly available agtech products and services. To be eligible, an entry must have been produced or updated after January 1, 2018.
Third-party evaluators judged each of the nominated agtech companies based on six categories, including innovation, performance, ease of use, functionality, value and impact. Judges included senior executives with diverse business, marketing, sales, analytical and academic backgrounds who are recognized experts in their fields. (Not much beyond this generic statement is provided on the award homepage about the judging process.)
The following cow tech companies were among the companies receiving Breakthrough Awards:
• Advanced Animal Diagnostics (QScout Lab)
• Connecterra (Ida)
Also this week, the established Techstars accelerator community announced its Farm to Fork winners.
Source: FeedX Twitter feedFeedX of Madison, Wisconsin, and Milk Moovement of Halifax, Canada, were among the winners. As part of the prize, the companies get three months of mentorship and help in seeking funding. In addition, being named a Techstar gives a company lifetime access to the portfolio of previously supported startups.
“I think we’ve created a solution that could hugely improve the feed industry, and now it’s time to figure out exactly how to scale it,” says Carl Lippert, dairy farmer and co-founder of FeedX. “We think Techstars can help us get to a place where we can help a lot more farmers faster by helping us build a strong team, find necessary resources and build the partnerships we need."
FeedX helps close the gap between trade board prices for feed and real-world, location-specific prices. Users can find prices for a variety of feed commodities in their marketplace based on zip code.
Milk Moovement was also named a Techstar this week.
“The strength of a startup is largely tied to the strength of its network,” wrote Rob Forsythe, CEO at Milk Moovement, on Twitter after the announcement. “Today we join one of the strongest networks in the world!”
Forsythe and the company he leads help dairy cooperatives get products to market faster by ensuring the entire supply chain is working with the same sets of data and information.
Commentary about the winners from Techstar Farm to Fork administrators revealed the challenges of startups during COVID-19 earlier this year.
“Industry-wide there was acceleration and a unique sense of urgency to do more faster with fewer resources,” said Brett Brohl, managing director of the Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator. “The food system has changed more in the last six months than it has over the entirety of the [last] five years.”
Read more here.
Two additional companies were announced as participants in the Global Dairy Tech Start-Up Spotlight to be held Oct. 1 – Zisk and Fyto.
Zisk is a smartphone app that utilizes multiple algorithms to incorporate the expenses of running a dairy along with a continuously updating live feed from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in order to project feed costs and profitability.
Fyto’s patent-pending technology produces nutrient-dense animal feed. The company claims it does so “from non-GMO crops without synthetic fertilizer and with much less energy, water, and labor than traditional agriculture.”
Register for the Oct. 1 event here.
News of another virtual fence company testing its tech on-farm broke this week in the UK. Norwegian company Nofence is in trial at six sites in Britain.
Read more here [subscription required].
DeLaval announced a live virtual tour of one of its robotic milking customers will be held Oct. 1. TDI Farms in Westphalia, Michigan, is milking 1,500 cows with 24 of the company’s milking robots.
Register for the free virtual tour here.
Quote of the week:
“If tech people go deep on tech stuff, and farmers go deep on farming stuff, neither is actually understanding the other.”
— Sarah Nolet, founder of Tenacious Ventures and AgThentic
See the full context of her comments in this podcast in which she also discusses the differences between the U.S. and Australian agtech sectors.
HINT: One is bigger than the other.
***Don't forget to attend the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit on Monday, Sept. 14. I’ll be in attendance. Connect with me at the event if you’d like to discuss your cow tech one-on-one.***