The Galilee company's solution integrates external data collected by drones to detect, identify, and monitor diseases, pests, and other agronomic problems in field crops.
Israeli AI sustainable crop protection company AgroScout has announced that it has completed a $3 million financing round led by Kibbutz Yiron, and with the participation of Exit Valley crowd-funding platform, Agriline, The Trendlines Group and grants from the Israel Innovation Authority and the BIRD Foundation. Based in Misgav in the Western Galilee in norther Israel, AgroScout is a portfolio company of the The Trendlines Group Ltd. (SGX: 42T; OTCQX: TRNLY).
AgroScout's solution integrates external data collected by drones (together with AI software, deep learning and computer vision) to accurately and autonomously detect, identify, and monitor diseases, pests, and other agronomic problems in field crops. This solution can help farmers, who typically lose 20%-40% of their yield to disease and pests (FAO), mitigate the spread of disease, reduce blighted crops and increase revenue.
As its system relies on off-the-shelf low-cost equipment, such as smartphones and small commercial drones, AgroScout provides an affordable and easy-to-use solution based solely on user-generated content.
AgroScout CEO Simcha Shore said, "The funding will allow us to expand our market reach significantly and broaden our services to our customers, offering them a viable and valuable solution to one of the most urgent issues facing farmers today. We expect this new round to enable us to deepen our strong relationship with Oracle, to offer a flexible, cutting-edge AI solution for farmers, enabling them to increase their yields and contribute to global food security for all."
Kibbutz Yiron's Economic Committee chairman Shalom Simchon, formerly Israel's Minister of Agriculture said, "To maximize yields, mitigate disease and loss of produce, farmers have to incorporate advanced technology in their daily work. We are excited about AgroScout's abilities to provide early detection of pests, disease, and other risks for crops, enabling real-time farmer interventions to decrease pesticide use, lower production costs and grow produce in a more sustainable way."
"We believe that companies like AgroScout, which Agriline has invested in, have tremendous potential to significantly impact and optimize more sustainable food production, that, in the long run, will reduce CO2 and other pollutants that are contributing so much to the global warming crisis. We develop financial models - this is our expertise, these days we are in the process of developing a new financial model. This investment is strategic and in line with our model known as the 'Earth Ecosystem' said Vincent Tchenguiz.