The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021 October2021

VOL 10 | ISSUE 04 | 2021

1 The

Most Innovative

AgTech

Companies of 2021

Farm-Tech Solutions Resolving Issues In Smart Farming to Boost Productivity and Maximize Profitability

Jonathan Bernwieser Co-founder and CEO

Digitizing Agricultural Trade and Helping Family-run Farm Businesses Make Meaningful Business Decisions www.insightssuccess.com

Editor’s Desk F

ood is the source of our healthy living, and agriculture is the backbone of it. Thus, having a sustainable agriculture ecosystem in place can feed everyone across the globe.

Bringing Revolution in the Agricultural Industry

For today’s growing population, just the climatic conditions are not enough; it is with technology we can meet the needs of agriculture for the growing numbers. Technology has immense potential to improve the conditions of farming.

However, farmers are still struggling with various concerns such as trade wars, labor shortages, soil health, etc. But the good news is there are some ingenious minds and innovative AgTech companies who are working hard to solve these issues by leveraging technological developments.

With a broad range of diverse people in the ag-tech industry, these companies never fail to impress us with their bright, innovative ideas.

More AgTech companies are being introduced in the market since the need to harvest and grow the food supply is also massive. The demand for these ag-tech companies is also increasing, adding more nutritional value to the agricultural field. The farmers use their products on a larger scale, and they trust their solutions, as it makes their process convenient.

Food and Agriculture is such an industry where continuous production is essential to keep things aligned. There is a huge career for the coming entrepreneurs to prosper and grow in the AgTech industry, as this industry keeps on growing bigger and better. The next goal of the companies in the AgTech industry is to reach the drought and the famine areas, develop innovative products in those areas, and improve the nutritional value for those nations.

AgTech companies have certainly raised their standards with the best use of the technology.

Their vision is to build a team with ground-breaking products to solve all agriculture-related challenges and contribute to the sustainability development of the agriculture industry.

Even in the times of covid, these companies served their purpose through supply chains and performing tasks which otherwise were possible by human labor only.

AgTech is creating a lot of opportunities by implementing various channels to build innovative agricultural products. The way the AgTech industry is progressing with technological advancements and state-of-the-art solutions will definitely be the key differentiator factor in the global commodity in the agricultural field.

In this edition of The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021, we have enlisted those innovative companies who are changing the face of the agricultural industry with their path-breaking solutions.

On the cover, we have Agrando GmbH, a company that aims at digitizing agricultural retail across Europe. Agrando is shaping a sustainable agricultural market in which all market participants can do business with each other as efficiently and successfully as possible.

You will get to read about more such companies and their innovative solutions. Also, while flipping the pages, do not forget to read insightful articles written by our in-house editorial team.

Let’s start!

Sourabh More

sourabh@insightssuccess.com

COVER STORY

08 Digitizing Agricultural Trade and Helping Family-run Farm Businesses Make Meaningful Business Decisions

ARTICLE

16

Farm-Tech Solutions Resolving Issues In Smart Farming to Boost Productivity and Maximize Profitability

20

24

Agnext Technologies

SciCrop

Bringing Trust, Speed, and Transparency in Agriculture Value Chain

Helping Companies to Solve Impossible Problems in Agribusiness through Data Science and Analytics

28

32

TerraMagna

Terviva

On a Path to Revolutionizing Agro-Credit

Helping Farmers Feed the World’s Rising Population While Taking Care of the Planet

Editor-in-Chief Hitesh Dhamani Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor Sourabh More

Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

Co-designer

David King

Priyanka Rajage

Kartik Balapurkar

Shubham Dali

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Martin, Vinod

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Dharmendra

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Amol Wadekar

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com October, 2021

Follow us on :

www.facebook.com/insightssuccess/

www.twitter.com/insightssuccess

We are also available on : Copyright © 2021 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success.

Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.

Company Name

Featured Person

Brief

Agrando GmbH Agrando.com

Jonathan Bernwieser Co-founder and CEO

Agrando is a rapidly growing AgTech company from Munich and the reliable partner of the successful agriculture.

AgNext Technologies agnext.in

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra CEO & Founder

AgNext is a fast-growing AgTech company that aims to solve quality and trust in food value chains by making them safer, transparent and fairer.

Dimitra Incorporated dimitra.io

Jon Trask CEO

The Dimitra agriculture platform incorporates inputs from mobile app, sensors, satellite, and DNA tests.

ED&F Man edfman.com

Sharaz Hussain CEO

ED&F Man is an employee-owned agricultural commodities merchant with 5,500 people in 50 countries.

Inghams Limited inghams.com.au

Leasa Beasley CEO

Inghams is committed to nourishing the world through its people, planet, partners and its products.

New Wave Foods newwavefoods.com

Mary McGovern CEO

New Wave Foods makes sustainable, plant-based shrimp that are every bit as delicious as ocean shrimp–and healthier for the planet.

ShoreTrade shoretrade.com

Peter Manettas Founder and CEO

ShoreTrade is a B2B Online Trading Marketplace that allows sale of seafood direct from fishery to wholesaler.

SciCrop scicrop.com

Jose Damico and Renato Ferraz Co-founders

SciCrop offer the fastest, most efficient and flexible solutions of data processing to deliver strategic information through algorithms for you to manage your business.

TerraMagna terramagna.com.br

Bernardo Fabiani CEO & Co-founder

TerraMagna is reinventing the way credit is underwritten, provided and collected in Brazilian agriculture.

Terviva terviva.com

Naveen Sikka Founder & CEO

Terviva is a food and agriculture company that delivers tasty and nourishing plant-based food ingredients from the pongamia tree.

Jonathan Bernwieser Co-founder and CEO

Agrando GmbH

COVER story

Digitizing Agricultural Trade and Helping Family-run Farm Businesses Make Meaningful Business Decisions

‘‘

With the largest independent trading platform, Agrando systematically helps companies make meaningful business decisions.

‘‘

I

n the world of digitalization, it is essential to have facilities for making online trade for every field, and this truth applies to the agriculture field as well.

Certainly, digitalization, accompanied by groundbreaking technologies, can transform the agriculture sector and open doors for new opportunities.

Agricultural businesses can grow more if they have online access. Thus, creating a digital platform that facilitates online agricultural trade is of utmost importance for companies trading in the agricultural sector.

Taking this significance of digitization for agricultural trades into consideration, Agrando came into the inception.

Agrando aims at digitizing agricultural retail across Europe.

The company is shaping a sustainable agricultural market in which all market participants can do business with each other as efficiently and successfully as possible.

Today, Agrando is a team of more than 160 people with more than a dozen nationalities. Besides, it also expanded to Austria in 2020 and to France in 2021.

We at Insights Success caught up with Jonathan Bernwieser, the Co-founder and CEO of Agrando, to know more about Agrando and how it is breaking new ground in the agricultural industry together with its customers and partners.

Growing Together through Digitization Headquartered in Munich, Germany, Agrando GmbH was founded in 2017. It operates from two locations, Munich and Pristina, Kosovo. Since its foundation, the company has followed the ideology that all players involved in agricultural trade can grow together through digitization. It makes the latest market knowledge available to all players.

The more market participants use Agrando, the more everyone can benefit.

With the largest independent trading platform, Agrando systematically helps companies make meaningful business decisions. About 20,000 farmers are registered on the platform, with around 1,000 new farmers registering each month. Agrando stands for an increase in knowledge and opportunities - both for each individual business and for the entire agricultural sector.

Working with the Combination of Online and Offline Marketing Talking about the journey of Agrando, Jonathan mentions that the company’s first investment came mainly from farmers themselves and other agtech enthusiasts because most early-stage investors could not relate to what it was trying to build. Agrando had already failed once, and Jonathan, coming from a farm, convinced those who knew the market that they are onto something can have a big impact.

Agrando was founded twice; the first version was only focusing on aggregating Supply and Demand. The team had to learn that if they really want to make a difference and work towards their purpose, they will have to dive a lot deeper and get themselves involved in the processes behind

a transaction. They solved it by starting from scratch and building their own software with their own data architecture, which is able to reflect the complexities of input procurement.

In the beginning, Agrando focused solely on online marketing. But, it had to learn that if it communicates online with a target group that is not online, it can send out the greatest messages, but those messages will never be read. Today, Agrando works with a great combination of online and offline marketing. It has its own Customer Service team on the phone. It entered into partnerships with associations and other farmer communities and worked together to provide transparency about the benefits of digital tools. The company has learned that it's the mix of online and offline/in-person and digital that holds the biggest potential.

In July 2021, Agrando closed its Series A funding round with the highest sum in Agtech in Europe ever. Investors such as the Munich-based yabeo impact AG, Sony Innovation Fund and Investbridge joined existing investors such as June Fund and JLR Star. This successful round will enable Agrando to focus on internationalization as well as R&D. Giving Businesses a Competitive Edge

‘‘

Agrando is the leading independent solution provider for digital agricultural trade.

Agrando is the leading independent solution provider for digital agricultural trade. Its platform brings together all the players involved, simplifies traditional retail processes, and enables unique market analyses that help businesses of all kinds remain competitive in the complex agricultural economy in the long term.

At first sight, Agrando is a retail platform for farmers to buy their supplies and for retailers to sell them. However, after realizing that a mere online shop would not help agriculture facing the future, Agrando built its own software and data warehouse to truly support agricultural companies of any size. That is what makes Agrando different from other companies: Agrando is not just a marketing agency or online store.

The company owns the necessary infrastructure to offer fact-based support for farmers to make profitable decisions and save money and resources in the long run. This enables Agrando to connect retail partners who otherwise would not have met. Even in such a regional business to every stakeholder, Agrando offers trade-specific advice and solutions.

‘‘

‘‘

We connect you with all the partners and solutions you need to manage your farm in your region for the future.

‘‘

As mentioned before, Agrando’s target group wasn’t online yet. Both farmers and retailers lacked the infrastructure to make purchases digitally. It knows that the majority of farmers across Europe would like to shop online – but only a fraction actually do so. The reasons are often simple: there is a lack of infrastructure, purchasing is too timeconsuming, and the young generation of farmers does not find the service that they are used to in other areas: fast response times, expert advice, price transparency.

Turning Crisis into Advantage Even during 2020 and so far during 2021, Agrando did not stop hiring people. It turned the pandemic into an advantage: For example, with people working mainly from home, it could look for new talents outside the geographical radius of its office buildings.

The biggest challenge is the one its clients are facing: COVID-19 hit the agriculture sector, and these businesses were and are facing completely new obstacles. Reaching

them and offering its support despite that has been the true challenge for Agrando.

Making Agricultural Regional Structures Fit for Future We asked Jonathan his thought on the necessity of a positive work culture, to which he answers, “I would transform positive work culture more into a purpose and a value-driven work culture. Values and purpose come first.

We make sure we only involve people in our project who match our company's values and who join Agrando because of our purpose to make agricultural regional structures fit for the future.”

He further adds, “We also prioritize feedback and open communication: Team members are not left alone with their questions, or feedback. We keep up a high level of exchange routines throughout the entire company and we make sure that team events can still take place, virtually or face to face.”

Utilizing Technology for Availing Edge and Being Profitable Especially in the agriculture industry, digitization arrived rather later than sooner. However, factors like accessibility, transparency, and targeting (new) customers are very important in every field. Jonathan mentions that he is convinced that businesses definitely need to invest in newer technological developments in order to stay competitive and profitable. But it is also the responsibility of companies like Agrando to be supportive partners during that process.

He asserts, “A small, family-run farm does not have to invest in their own IT services, a small retailer does not have to invest in a 24/7 e-commerce agency. That’s where we step in. We bring the knowledge and infrastructure to enable agricultural companies of any size to use these technological developments to their advantage.”

Strengthening Regional Structures Agrando’s goal has always been to strengthen regional structures, allow small agriculture businesses to strive, be more flexible in financial decisions, and make more profit.

It is creating the opportunity for farms to position themselves for the future and counteract structural change in Europe.

When Jonathan looks at farms, he sees farmers who are not 100% dependent on the industry, but who continue to run their businesses with same passion and entrepreneurial spirit. With Agrando’s support, they can do that with even more success.

Jonathan believes that Agrando will have expanded to a number of countries in Europe in the next five years. It will have established itself as a strong and valuable partner for farmers and agricultural businesses.

Hear it from Satisifed Clientele "At the regional retailers where I have bought or sold before, I get better prices than before. We also found new traders. They are not far away, but we didn't know them before.” - Johannes Dierks, Farmer.

"The conditions for agricultural retail are changing, and we have been feeling this for the last few years. With Agrando,

I have better prospects for the future. I trust the team to provide me and my customers with the right services. If we really all end up working in the same system and everyone has the same starting point in terms of market information, we can finally start investing the newly won time in personal contact, additional services and really good advice again." - Christian Hastreiter, Retail.

"Agrando's service can be very helpful for economic planning on farms. Agrando takes care of the timeconsuming research, evaluates current market data and connects the farmer with trustworthy retailers. With the Agrando Pro Service, valuable time and unnecessary stress can be saved in the procurement of inputs, and in addition Agrando offers personal support in purchasing planning and processing." - Christian Kluge, Managing Director, Bremischer Landwirtschaftsverband e.V. (agricultural association Bremen, Germany)

Farm-Tech Solutions

Resolving Issues in

SMART FARMING to Boost

PRODUCTIVITY and Maximize

PROFITABILITY

16 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

T

he farming sector is the most essential part of any nation. No nation can grow sufficiently without the contribution of its farmers in the field of agriculture and allied services. Agriculture is the most important food supplier, and it plays a vital role in the economic development of farmers and the nation. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations states that the global need for food would grow more than 70% by the end of 2050 since the population will also increase at that time by at least 2 billion. Although there is enough production of food to feed the entire population, close to 500 million people still suffer from malnutrition, and over 800 million remain hungry because of insufficient quality and quantity of food. Thus, smart farming is essential in modern times to meet the needs of growing population and produce good quality and quantity of food.

Smart farming creates the way for practicing sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agricultural production means meeting the increasing demand of people while protecting the environment from climate crisis and ensuring that future generations' prosperity is not threatened. In smart farming, new innovations and the latest technologies are applied in farming. It leverages various technologies and tools, such as auto-guidance systems, drones, geographical information systems (GIS), GPS, remote sensors, and IoT capabilities in order to better control and enhance the production of crops, improve monitoring capacities, and overall farm efficiency.

Though there are certain benefits of smart farming, but implementing it is not so easy. There are also certain challenges to agribusiness owners and farmers that need to be resolved to ensure maximum profitability and greater efficiency.

Smart farming has the potential to improve agricultural processes in a more efficient, productive, and sustainable way. It integrates a set of computational paradigms, devices, technologies, and protocols to improve farming processes. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big data, Cloud, and edge computing provide capabilities and solutions to evaluate the large data generated by components. The development of new functionalities in the agriculture field requires the inclusion of advanced security features. New Security features should contain features of reliability and accuracy. The challenge is that smart farming is still in its initial phase and has quite a low level of security features.

Data availability and accuracy are important points to help farmers take smart and calculative decisions, and data security is crucial for building strong and efficient systems.

Since smart farming includes a quantity of resources and a wide variety, strong security addresses challenges of handling massive data, compatibility, and constrained

www.insightssuccess.com

resources. Smart farming can provide insights into how plantation productivity can be increased without increasing the crop area; it can optimize irrigation processes with less water and energy consumption.

These insights from massive data can be utilized for creating more sustainable practices. New capacities created by the implementation of smart farming can optimize agricultural processes, allowing an increase in production by using minimum natural resources. Smart farming and innovation in agriculture can transform all aspects of agriculture. It can lead to more inclusive, transparent, productive, and resilient farming systems. However, integrating advanced technologies into the farming sector depends on the complexity of mobile devices, remote sensing, analytics, cloud, big data, cybersecurity, and such different intelligent systems. For building robust and efficient systems, smart farming should ensure the accurate and complete generation, processing, and transfer of data, and systems should have adequate security features to prevent attacks.

Ensuring data integrity is essential for enabling the proper functioning of data-driven technologies. In smart farming, the devices and communication systems are mostly exposed to climatic fluctuations. Elements like natural events, engines, power line transmissions, wandering animals, people, and agricultural machinery make smart farming vulnerable to issues that have not been resolved in other contexts so far. Light and efficient algorithms can be helpful to resolve system constraints. Data should be protected at all times to ensure system efficiency and reliability.

The modernization of farming methods is important for increasing agricultural production and for preserving natural resources. Smart farming enhances farming tasks with efficient control of actuators, maximizing utility, optimizing resource use, boosting production, maximizing profitability, and minimizing costs. It demands that farming systems should include more computational capabilities like edge computing, capacity to handle massive data, latest technology resources, and advanced and most accurate and reliable security features. If these challenges in the farming sectors are resolved, it can lead to the more economic development of the country and benefit many farmers and increasing population in the world.

Reaching an advanced level of smart farming demands enhanced security features to protect valuable farming data that give more opportunities to implement farming systems on a large scale. Even though smart farming creates some challenges, it also gives fresh and advanced research opportunities in security as well as in other areas of computer science.

October 2021

| 17

CEO & Founder

AgNext Technologies

20 | October 2021

‘‘

Mr. Taranjeet Singh Bhamra

‘‘

AgNext has innovated & developed full-stack integrated algorithms, so ware & hardware platform, which addresses quality assessment issues across the Agri value chain, enabling businesses to analyze food on-the-spot in just 30 seconds. www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021

Technologies Bringing Trust, Speed, and Transparency in Agriculture Value Chain

U

ndeniably, the quality of the food is the single most value multiplier across the food value chains.

However, when it comes to assessing the quality of the food, there are many issues that need to be addressed. A leading agtech startup, AgNext Technologies, is using AIbased technologies to solve food quality assessment issues.

By integrating hardware, software, and data analytics, AgNext has innovated full-stack solutions that enable rapid assessment techniques for quality estimation in the postharvest supply chain. With the increasing penetration of deep-tech, AgNext aims to standardize the food quality assessment across the value chains to facilitate a safer, fairer, and more transparent food trade.

We at Insights Success caught up with Mr. Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, the Founder and CEO of AgNext Technologies, to know more about the company and how it is revolutionizing AgTech for more sustainable agriculture

The Journey So Far AgNext’s journey began at IIT-Kharagpur in 2016. It received its first seed funding in 2017, powered by a-idea NAARM. Later, it raised capital from renowned investors like Omnivore and Kalaari, and recently from Falcon-Edge managed Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) fund. In September 2021, AgNext raised over USD $21 million, the largest Series A raised by any Indian agtech start-up till date.

Currently, AgNext aims to digitize food quality using AIbased food assessment technologies.

Story of Fierce Perseverance, Determination and Grit Solving food quality issues in agriculture was not an easy goal that leaders at AgNext set for themselves. AgNext’s story is a story of fierce perseverance, determination, and www.insightssuccess.com

grit because, for the initial few years of its journey, its leaders dedicatedly focused on building and improving AgNext’s technology. From tirelessly collecting millions of data-sets from multiple geographies to persistently building AI-based models which can seamlessly function on-ground, even without direct internet access or electricity, AgNext’s vision was their North star, which kept them going to tackle all challenges.

AgNext has faced common as well as some uncommon hurdles, considering the unique concepts it has introduced in the agtech space. However, despite all the obstacles, its technological prowess and a brilliantly focused team have gained AgNext the support of key investors, clients, and other stakeholders who have helped the company today to scale as one of India’s leading agtech start-ups.

Generating Value for Stakeholders Even in Tough Times Taranjeet expresses that the disruptions in the agtech sector brought on by COVID have led to unique technological adoptions across the board. The pandemic led to the destabilization of supply lines and hindered the movement of resources and workforce across national and international borders. This was one of the biggest challenges faced by almost every company. However, the companies that adopted technological solutions to circumvent such challenges, were not only able to continue operational tasks, but also continued to generate value for their stakeholders.

AgNext, massively scaled its collaboration with existing and new partners to leverage strengths of each other for smooth exchange of data points, information, and onground feedback.

October 2021

| 21

AgNext has created many communication channels to encourage healthy discourse across the company. By instilling the values of trust and transparency in its work culture, it has focused on building initiatives that not only motivate its colleagues but also facilitate positivity in the workplace. Additionally, it ensures a positive flow of potential from distinct backgrounds with diversity and inclusivity.

AgNext also prioritizes work-life balance to root out potential burn-outs and stresses, which can hamper productivity and positivity of the people at work.

Cutting Down Food Quality Assessment Time AgNext is at the forefront of agricultural revolution 4.0. By digitizing and standardizing quality, it is challenging the subjective traditional quality assessment methods, and offering deep-tech powered solutions for rapid food quality assessments. Through Qualix, agribusinesses can cut down the food quality assessment time from a stretch of hours to a matter of seconds and also manage and monitor quality flow in their supply chains.

Empowering Fair-Trading Practices and a Robust Model of Quality With an integrated approach to frontier technologies, AgNext has innovated hardware, software, and data analytics solutions that together concentrate on reducing the quality estimation time of Agri-produce to a matter of seconds, thereby ensuring a value-driven flow of quality across the supply line. AgNext’s full-stack platform ‘Qualix’ enables AI-driven instant access to food quality testing. It provides SaaS-based solutions to manage, monitor, and evaluate quality in the post-harvest supply chain using sophisticated data analytics to cull out crucial business insights.

The deployment of Qualix at distinct assessment stages helps AgNext build trust and transparency in food chain management systems. With the combined potential of these tech-driven solutions, AgNext empowers fair-trading practices and a robust model of quality.

Instilling Culture Based on Values of Trust and Transparency Taranjeet believes that strong company culture is a shared set of values and beliefs that guide an organization towards a successful future. He says, “Positive work culture is what frames the success of your company, and it is essential to sustain an emphatic working environment to foster healthy engagement and a productive flow of ideas.”

22 | October 2021

Facilitating Better Profit Margins for Farmers Farmers also benefit from AgNext’s instant food quality assessment technology that is backed by AI-on-the-edge. In traditional set-up, a farmer spends months cultivating a crop and when he goes to sell it, it is subjectively and manually analyzed for food quality, a process which has a high error rate. By using technology to standardize food quality testing, farmers can be assured of fair-pricing of their Agriproduce which leads to better profit margins. AgNext’s solutions benefit all stakeholders in the food value chains, thus fostering trust and transparency between buyers and sellers.

Increasing Geographical Footprint and Commodities Portfolio In conclusion, Taranjeet mentions that AgTech is an emerging sector, but there is a rapidly growing interest across the world in the potential of new-age technologies.

So, the pressure to perform is high, but AgNext has significantly invested in building its technological infrastructure and prowess, which ultimately is the key differentiating factor.

Additionally, AgNext is also investing in building great teams across the board who share in its belief that the future of agriculture is digital. In the next five years, AgNext will focus on increasing its geographic footprint and its commodities portfolio to lead at the global scale.

www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021

SciCrop Helping Companies to Solve Impossible Problems in Agribusiness through Data Science and Analytics

Renato Ferraz

Jose Damico

Co-founder and Chief Business Officer

Co-founder and CEO SciCrop

24 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

SciCrop

SciCrop was founded by Jose Damico and Renato Ferraz to help companies transcend impossible problems in the agribusiness sector through data science and analytics.

Previously working for many years in the analytics market for financial institutions, Jose and Renato joined forces to create a company that would become the leading player in advanced analytics for top ag multinational companies.

As pioneers in the Brazilian agtech market, SciCrop became a trusted advisor and a reference for all the community. It started to solve complex data integration problems in the ag supply chain, quickly expanding operations around Brazil. SciCrop’s mission today is to be the biggest partner in the journey of digital transformation of the main companies in the agribusiness chain. With a business model of analytics as a service (AaaS), SciCrop has already earned more than 25 international awards in 7 countries, as a prominent innovation, tech and scaleup startup.

We at Insights Success caught up with Renato to know more about the company and how it has made its way to be known as the leading analytics provider for the largest ag companies.

Being Market Fit SciCrop faced many challenges in its journey, but the market fit was the bigger one. Its first defeat was the market maturity, which was not prepared for this kind of digitalization at the time. Many offers of SciCrop depend on data that should be integrated in a data warehouse with a regular frequency and volume to enable the analysis process and algorithms development.

In the first three years, SciCrop has been racing to develop its infrastructure and protocols to facilitate the adoption of its clients in the analytics journey. Today it offers the complete solution from the beginning, adding to its scope the service of data management and cloud support. This process also helped SciCrop to pivot its business model and solve the challenge of the solution market fit. At that time, SciCrop was focused on the B2F (Business-toFarmer) suffering to monetize, and then it started the B2B model.

www.insightssuccess.com

Serving Large Agribusiness Companies with Advanced Analytics First of all, SciCrop is a technology company. As any company today needs technology to scale its operations, SciCrop has been surfing the wave of being one of the only startups to serve large agribusiness companies with state-of-the-art in advanced analytics. Its services and solutions meet the main challenges of the agribusiness chain, providing what it calls agriculture 4.0.

In an increasingly competitive market, SciCrop’s clients' operations need to be optimized to the limit, providing gains that are only possible to be realized when data shows how to execute those operations. Its AgroAPi is a classic example of a solution that serves the entire chain and allows its clients' flexibility to analyze and generate insights into their operation. If someone needs something customized, SciCrop also offers a solution and that way it positions itself as the main technology supplier for the ag industry in Brazil.

Giving Freedom of Creation and Space for Employees When it comes to maintaining a positive work culture, SciCrop keeps its team young, always seeking to update the main technologies and market practices. It gives freedom of creation and space for employees to develop as a person. It all starts with the hiring process. At the beginning of its journey, the company was incubated by Google, and it learned how to hire in the right way, and today it has almost no resignations. People like and believe in the company’s mission.

‘‘

We pride ourselves on national and international recognition as one of the main agtech in generating value for our customers. In our history, we have won several awards that demonstrate our technical capacity and engagement in the sector.

‘‘

T

oday, data is revolutionizing every industry. When it comes to the agriculture industry, many existing challenges can be resolved by leveraging data science. It was this idea that led to the inception of SciCrop.

October 2021

| 25

Becoming a Reference in Technology for Agribusiness Renato mentions that SciCrop has a practice of working with open source and always contributing to the software community, maintaining some projects for the sector. It also innovates with its R&D; it has partnerships with research institutes that provide the development of new cutting-edge technologies. For SciCrop, it is simply an obligation to become a reference in technology for agribusiness.

Supporting Sustainable and Scalable Agribusiness Moreover, SciCrop has always been very close to the community, both in technology and in agribusiness. From the beginning, its objective has been to bring technology to improve ag productivity and reduce production costs in agribusiness.

As Renato mentioned, SciCrop is adept at the opensource, and many solutions it develops have already helped create new products by other partners and by the market. SciCrop is a part of innovation hubs that help technify producers, and it is present in sustainability initiatives that empower the community, such as the Sustainable Soy Program in the Cerrado, supported by the Land Innovation Fund. Supporting a more sustainable and scalable agribusiness is at the base of SciCrop's values, and consequently enables farmers to be prepared to compete internationally with productivity.

26 | October 2021

Maintaining Credibility with Current and Future Clients Talking about the future of SciCrop, Renato expresses that the competition in the AgTech industry is growing every year. In the last 3 years, the number of startups in this sector has tripled, and they all want to be in the cradle of agribusiness: Brazil. He considers it is important for SciCrop to be well prepared.

Renato believes that the company will have a little more peace of mind by being positioned throughout the chain and in a more infrastructural part of the technology. What SciCrop does is difficult to deliver, so good competitors will emerge, but they will be less compared to other segments. SciCrop plays its role, always being aware of what is new and disruptive and creating new solutions to serve customers.

“Evolving is always necessary in this world of technology.

And connections/network are even more important in the agribusiness sector. So, positioning ourselves as a trusted advisor is critical to maintaining credibility with current and future clients. In the end, it's all about keeping a talented team, having a good vision of the future, and above all, being faithful to our values, and here in SciCrop our main value is to change people's lives for better by bringing greater productivity to agribusiness that should feed more than 9 billion people in 2050,” concludes Renato. www.insightssuccess.com

Bernardo Fabiani CEO/Co-founder

TerraMagna

28 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021

TerraMagna On a Path to Revolutionizing Agro-Credit

T

he agriculture industry has revolutionized over the past few decades by leveraging innovative technologies. However, agriculture still struggles with the credit culture.

Often, news of farmers suffering from the credit culture is common across the globe. In many instances, they end up paying more than they have to, making a farmer's life miserable.

Bernardo Fabiani the CEO, and Co-founder of TerraMagna, came up with a brilliant way to help farmers access fair credit. The company works with an exclusive technology that allows granting credit to distributors and producers faster than the traditional market at fairer rates.

Let’s unveil how TerraMagna is revolutionizing agro-credit and taking the Brazilian agriculture market to new heights.

Triumph Over Modern Drought Brazilian agribusiness, to function, needs credit. And that credit is scarce. In the 1970s, Brazil imported commodities to feed its people. Today, it is a production power, the largest exporter of soybeans, corn, and other crops. This evolution began with a state policy that used official resources to provide the needed financing, which is no longer sufficient like any market matures. Insufficient government subsidy made the agribusiness look for other ways of financing. However, Brazil has a data blackout in the rural field - which often lacks a basic internet connection.

www.insightssuccess.com

TerraMagna was created to eliminate this information gap between those who need credit to fund or invest in a crop and the financer - be it a retailer that does a forward sale, bank, securitization company, or a capital market investor seeking more profitable options.

Through the utilization of satellites, government data, and artificial intelligence, TerraMagna analyzes and monitors agricultural warranties, from seeding to harvesting. This is a way to solve the fact that Brazil does not have much information about crop fields to measure risks.

Up Until Now TerraMagna is reinventing how credit is underwritten, provided, and collected in Brazilian agriculture by leveraging technology and alternative data sources to transform a risky and volatile process currently done by less sophisticated players into a simple and safe experience.

The goal of TerraMagna is to provide access to fair and simple credit to farmers, retailers, and industries. Through this, investors have high-yield, collateralized, marketuncorrelated, high-volume assets to invest in.

Since its institution in 2017, it has gone through some important milestones. It is the first Brazilian company to be invested by Yield Lab and was chosen as one of the 100 most potential startups in Brazil by Pequenas Empresas & Grandes Negócios magazine for three consecutive years (2019, 20 and 21).

October 2021

| 29

We take to agribusiness the most important input: credit.

Recently, TerraMagna was in a US $2 million round led by OneVC with participation from Maya Capital, Accion Venture Lab, and key angel investors. The idea, which started with three engineers with big dreams, is now a company with more than 130 employees.

measuring previously intangible risks for the financier.

In addition, with the recurrence of the analysis, the company makes it possible for unavoidable problems (such as weather) to be predicted and, most important, for databased actions to be taken during the crop cycle, preventing debts from rolling over for consecutive years.

Steady Growth During Pandemic Unlike other sectors of the Brazilian economy, agribusiness continued to grow, even during the pandemic. Brazilian agribusiness had a gross domestic product growth of almost 17% in agro, compared to two years ago. The sector opened more than 61 thousand new job opportunities, the best performance since 2011.

This process brings lucidity for granting credit to the farmer's various needs. It allows them to pay rates according to the risk presented by his production, by the conditions of his city, specifically, and not by a market average that will always be expensive to offset the intrinsic risks involved.

Value-Driven Culture

While this growth is remarkable, even during an economically complex period, the agriculture market still lacks sophistication, technology, credit - the area in which the company operates. This leaves room for innovative ideas to be applied in the segment, with significant potential for growth and positively changing the lives of millions of families, which is precisely its objective.

Trust is the foundation of everything TerraMagna does. It believes in the power to simplify and only brings positive things to one's daily lives: the organizational climate improves, the employees feel part of what it does, and coexistence is simpler.

Unmatched Offerings

That's how the company keeps itself aligned in fighting the battle.

TerraMagna utilizes several technologies to follow all the evolution points of a crop, from seeding to harvesting,

Concepts such as free communication between all sectors, transparent processes, assertive organization, and planning

30 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

are the reasons it constantly achieved exponential growth.

Without these values, the company would certainly still be many steps behind.

Backing Up the Community Much of TerraMagna's innovation comes from its exclusive technology and market intelligence that allows it to understand better the risk offered in each production and, if necessary, to charge that farmer better without harming their sustenance resources.

As a company, TerraMagna ensures that it is always the most correct, fairest option to finance the farmer. In a recent case, it worked in a barter operation where the farmer paid 56% interest a year to fund his production. However, with the company's expertise, he paid half that percentage, directly receiving the impact of almost a 30% increase in his profit.

Branching Out Fruition Bernardo expresses that all input sales in the Brazilian agriculture market are 74% self-financed through forwarding sales from retailers to farmers. TerraMagna lets the retailer worry only about the core of their business selling inputs - without having to play the obligatory role of the financier. The TerraMagna team is the ones who do the financing.

Through this, the company's goal is to become the ultimate platform for financing agriculture in the Brazilian market and any underdeveloped agriculture. It could take the same solution to the rest of Latin America (except for Chile) and Africa or Eastern Europe.

Sprouting Aspiring Entrepreneurs Bernardo says, "In the entrepreneurial environment, especially when we talk about startups, it is common to hear the term "build fast and break things." But it's essential to understand that in agribusiness, when you do this, you're not breaking an app in a person's hand, neither a customer experience only, you're breaking a family's recipe.”

"The level of seriousness, of responsibility you must have in agribusiness is incomparable with the lightness with which venture-backed technology companies are used to working," concludes Bernardo.

www.insightssuccess.com

October 2021

| 31

Naveen Sikka Founder & CEO

Terviva

32 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Innovative AgTech Companies of 2021

Helping Farmers Feed the World’s Rising Population While Taking Care of the Planet

M

odern agriculture systems contribute to deforestation and a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Today, every person involved in the food system should be considering how they can contribute to building a sustainable food and agriculture ecosystem.

Responsible sourcing of global food supplies is a huge challenge that needs to be addressed immediately. Terviva, a food and agriculture technology company, is addressing these pressing issues with a novel approach.

Based in Alameda, California, Terviva delivers delicious, nourishing, and sustainable plant-based food ingredients from the pongamia tree. It provides patented high-yielding trees and offers proprietary bean processing to create highly sustainable oil and protein food ingredients. Pongamia trees restore farmland to productive use, helping farmers feed people while taking care of the planet.

Utilizing experience in management consulting, technology, natural resources, and agriculture, Naveen Sikka established Terviva to understand and extend the benefits of the ancient pongamia tree’s resilience and protein and oilpacked beans. Since then, Terviva has introduced pongamia as a new commercial crop that converts distressed farmland into sustainable, productive acreage.

www.insightssuccess.com

Under Naveen’s leadership, Terviva has unlocked pongamia’s potential as a climate-friendly, nutritional powerhouse for feeding the world’s rising population.

Introducing Nutritious Food Ingredients from Abundant Yields Ten years ago, Terviva was set out to grow an environmentally-friendly source of vegetable oil and plant protein. It planted acres of pongamia for the first time, developed a patented library of high-yield cultivars, learned how to commercially grow and harvest the tree crop with equitable farming practices, and introduced nutritious food ingredients from its abundant yields. Today, it is readying the world’s first-ever healthy and sustainable pongamia food ingredients to enter the market.

Being Patient and Committed to Success of Farmers Initially, it was challenging for Terviva to introduce pongamia to growers as a new tree crop that can be farmed commercially for essential food ingredients since it needed four years to mature before harvest. For a crop farmer, who is not familiar with the nutritional and environmental benefits of pongamia, this is a hard sell. By collaborating closely with growers who had underutilized land in geographies, Terviva knew pongamia would flourish; it was able to get enough trees in the ground to prove its abundant

October 2021

| 33

yields and value as a source of delicious and nutritious foods. The success of the farmers Terviva works with has been core to its mission since the beginning of its journey.

Using Customized Digital Technology Solutions Talking about the impact of the pandemic, Naveen mentions that trust and traceability in food supply chains are paramount in the wake of the pandemic. As demand for ethical products becomes mainstream, there’s been an increase in brands that want to be perceived as socially and environmentally sustainable. How foods are grown, and their impact on the people who cultivate them matters greatly, says Terviva.

Using customized digital technology solutions, Terviva commits to 100 percent supply chain traceability throughout its network of smallholder farmers in India and commercial growers in the U.S. This helps consumers trust the origin of its food ingredients and that their purchasing power benefits all the stakeholders who help deliver these foods to their table.

Restoring Productivity of Farmland and Helping Avoid Deforestation Terviva’s IP platform and innovations enable it to be the primary maker of pongamia-based foods. It is readying the launch of golden-colored, buttery-tasting vegetable oil that will be available next year, followed by protein isolates and a highly soluble protein flour.

Our IP platform and innovations enable us to be the primary maker of pongamia-based foods.

Its golden pongamia oil is mid-oleic, which means it has a high percentage of omega 9 fatty acids and has a high smoke point. Chefs rave that pongamia culinary oil tastes like ghee with the finish of extra virgin olive oil. It can be used to improve the texture and mouthfeel of buttery spreads, mayonnaise, sauces, plant-based milk, and creamers, or dressings, among various applications.

Pongamia culinary oil’s balanced nutritional profile and regenerative cultivation make it better for people and the planet than vegetable oils such as soy, palm, coconut, canola, sunflower, avocado, or olive oil.

Farmers grow and harvest pongamia trees to restore the productivity of farmland and help avoid deforestation.

Pongamia trees are resilient, nitrogen-fixing, require low inputs, and yield up to five times the beans per acre as U.S. soy. Their abundant yields and ability to capture 115 metric tons of carbon per acre over its 30-year lifetime are used to

34 | October 2021

www.insightssuccess.com

developing markets for growers to receive compensation for these ecosystem services too.

The company’s supply chain of wild-harvested pongamia beans also creates long-term benefits for smallholder farmers in India, who receive at least a 10 percent premium over the minimum support price set by the government, which ensures shared and equitable incomes for rural tribal communities.

Developing New and Innovative Products

unlock new sources of revenue for Terviva’s grower partners.

Being Transparent, Efficient, and Innovative Terviva’s culture is at the heart of everything it does. It values operational transparency, rigorous execution, and innovative thinking. As a diverse team with a broad range of backgrounds and professional expertise, it actively commits to ensuring that its members’ voices are heard, and the best ideas win.

Leveraging Technology to Ensure Excellence

The next phase of Terviva’s work will see the launch of the world’s most sustainable vegetable oil and protein food ingredients at scale. It will continue to build its traceable supply chains of pongamia beans and collaborate with leading sustainability-focused CPG companies to develop new and innovative products that outperform existing plantbased foods in taste, nutrition, and sustainability.

Ensuring Ethical Treatment of People and Planet In his advice to emerging AgTech leaders, Naveen says,“As an agtech entrepreneur, you have an opportunity and a responsibility to shape how your company practices social as well as environmental sustainability. Addressing these areas is also important if you want to achieve lasting success.”

According to Naveen, technology allows food and beverage brands to be radically transparent and share information in a way that is credible, comparable, and easily accessible to consumers, which is valuable for consumers and food companies alike.

Terviva leverages customized technology solutions to ensure excellence across its supply chain, from tracking which cultivars provide the highest yields for its grower partners, to identifying and supporting individual smallholder farmers in India who help to wild-harvest pongamia beans for a greater profit than was previously available to them.

Giving Back to the Community Terviva is committed to creating long-term social value and benefits for all its stakeholders and its communities. It ensures its growers get fair compensation for their work beyond the payment for the crop harvested from their fields.

Cultivating pongamia has net positive effects, including carbon sequestration, cleaner water, and more biodiverse and resilient habitats. Terviva’s commitment extends to

www.insightssuccess.com

October 2021

| 35