Investment into Australia’s agrifood technology has jumped by 83 per cent, according to AgFunder’s Founding Partner Michael Dean
Mr Dean was one of the last speakers at the evokeAG. 2020 conference, which wrapped up on Wednesday in Melbourne, and was attended by more than 1,300 delegates. He delivered the new statistics from the AgriFood Tech Investing Report – 2019, which revealed Australia’s total investment is now $90.3 million.
The two-day event was organised by AgriFutures Australia, and Managing Director says the theme "collaborative thinking to change the future", and it is important that it brought everyone in the agritech space together.
"I think one of the big issues is being clear about what everyone's role is, and what everyone is bringing to the table," he said. "We specifically got the startups in the room, got the farmers in the room, got investors and corporates in the room, and we got governments in the room. Not one single one of those groups can do it on their own. They have specific roles to play. For example, we know that startups and farmers have to work together and have to understand each other."
Startup Alley
evokeAG. featured 36 agritech startups, who all featured in the one spot - "Startup Alley". It allowed them to meet potential customers and producers, and showcase their innovations that will hopefully transform farming into the future, as well as connect farmers with inventors to drive solutions that meet their needs.
Photo: Kate Lyall from Bee Innovative, with Lewis Collins and Saron Berhane from BioScout.
BioScout is an integrated hardware and software platform that uses data and AI to track and analyse the spread of airborne diseases in real-time through disease detection sensors.
Photo: David Lyall from Bee Innovative.
Bee Innovative developed a radar-like sensor for bees that identifies, tracks and reports bee pollination activity helps increase crop yields and improves quality and value.
Photo: John Lucas and Dan Winson from Zetifi.
Zetifi is aiming to solve connectivity on farms and reducing the cost of building large scale off-grid wireless networks, by developing technology that enables power-efficient broadband connectivity across vast distances.
Photo: Max Bangen from Farmable.
Farmable tracks, monitor and record operations on fruit and vegetable farms through mobile phones, while generating a database of farm records to simplify reporting to authorities and marketing organisations.
Photo: Evan Henry and Marc-Andre Roberge from Nectar.
Nectar uses a data-driven platform to reduce annual hive mortality rates and enhances the decision-making capacity of commercial beekeepers.
Photo: Cameron Leeson from thingc Robotics
thingc Robotics has developed an on-demand fleet of autonomous, smart field robots, to carry out useful farming tasks throughout the season.
Photo: Andrew Jenkins from Sparrows.
Sparrows connects growers, distributors and freight forwarders onto one platform to enable tracking and monitoring - to reduce stock loss and food freight.
Photo: Thomas Gregson from Thinkbio.
Thinkbio specialises in the research, development and commercialisation of biological inoculants for agriculture, aiming to optimise yield potential while reducing environmental impact.
FreshPlaza will feature more details on some of the startup companies in depth over the next few weeks.
Trade Show
evokeAG. 2020 also included interactive exhibition stalls displaying the latest agrifood tech from around the world.
Dr Mike Briers and Garry Gale from from Food Agility CRC.
Dion Smith and Holger Plange from MineARC Systems.
Udi David Stern and Eran Pollak from N-Drip.
Emily MacKenzie and David Ingham from the High Commission of Canada.
Justin Kain from Kaicowrie and Simone Kain from George the Farmer.
Damian Carroll and Seyed Miri from Airbus.