Corteva Agriscience announced Indianapolis would become its global headquarters in March, making them the 4th largest company in the state by market cap. Susanne Wasson, President of Crop Protection for the company, joins the podcast this week to talk innovation in plant science, how it’s shaping a more sustainable future and moving headquarters closer to technology and customers.
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A Purdue University engineering professor who developed a solar-powered tool to help subsistence farmers preserve food in Africa has been named Indiana and Great Lakes Region Exporter of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Dr. Klein Ileleji, co-founder and chief executive officer of JUA Technologies International, devised a dehydrating system that dries fresh foods. The Dehytray helps small farmers reduce food waste in countries where refrigeration and storage are limited, but solar power is plentiful.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Ileleji explained exports are a great opportunity for small business owners.
“Sometimes when we think of small businesses, we think of a small business just doing things here, just doing business within the states. But quite a few of us actually export our products overseas,” Ileleji said.
An Indianapolis-based agtech startup has closed on a $1.3 million seed round of funding. Smart Apply Inc., which has developed a precision spray system designed to reduce pesticide use and costs, says it will use the funding to further preparations for an upcoming Series A round.
The seed round was led by Indy-based VisionTech Angels with participation from Elevate Ventures in Indy, Frontier Angels in Montana, California-based AGrow Ventures and individual angel investors.
Smart Apply’s system is an add-on kit for existing air blast sprayers. The company says its technology can detect when a crop, usually those in orchards and vineyards, is in the spray zone and target the crop, instead of blanketing an entire area whether the crop is there or not.
The company cites a study published in The Journal of ASTM International, which found the system reduced pesticide use by up to 60%.
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The Career Success Manager will cultivate relationships and manage outreach with colleges, universities, schools and companies on behalf of the Field Atlas career development platform. This position will create and execute a growth outreach strategy, track and analyze pipeline communication data to inform strategic decision making and manage onsite or virtual event support in an effort to share the agbiosciences on university campuses.
Our ideal candidate enjoys people and the value of investing in a person’s professional growth. Sharing the agbioscience sector to new audiences requires the Career Success Manager to be able to connect with people from varying backgrounds and experience levels.
Farmers make decisions every day and while variables change year in and year out, one thing remains constant: it all starts with seed. This week, we are joined by CEO of AgReliant Genetics, Paul Nselel. They dive into his career path, from Nike to today, driving on-farm innovation and what’s next for the company.
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NanoBio Designs LLC, a company that provides grain distributors and seed suppliers with onsite, rapid genetic detection solutions, has received a $100,000 investment from the Purdue Ag-Celerator, an agriculture innovation fund.
Ryan Skaar, chief operating officer of NanoBio Designs, said new DNA testing solutions are needed because of growing regulatory oversights to label genetically modified food. The company’s ExpresSeed platform reduces genetic testing from three to five days to just minutes.
Skaar said the Ag-Celerator funding allows NanoBio Designs to establish its laboratory presence in Indiana.
“With an established lab presence, we will be able to more effectively collaborate with Purdue University,” he said. “Collaborations with Purdue and industry partners will be key to our ability to commercialize the ExpresSeed platform.”
Ag-Celerator, created in 2015, is a $2 million innovation fund designed to provide critical startup support for Purdue University innovators who bring Purdue patented intellectual property or Purdue “know-how” technologies to market. The fund is operated by the Purdue Foundry, with assistance from the Purdue College of Agriculture, Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization and the agricultural industry.
“Purdue Agriculture celebrates and actively supports the innovation and entrepreneurship that ensures discoveries from the lab move into the fields, facilities and lives of our stakeholders,” said Bernie Engel, senior associate dean of research and graduate education.
Riley Gibb, director of business development for Purdue Foundry, said, “Farmers, growers and producers are always among the fastest adopters of new technologies. Their passion to strengthen crop and livestock production pushes agriculture startups like NanoBio Designs to deliver innovative technologies. We’re proud that Ag-Celerator investments support those technologies.”
In August 2021, Ag-Celerator eligibility was opened to startups in all agricultural fields. Previous recipients of Ag-Celerator investments are AkanoCure Pharmaceuticals Inc., Heliponix, Insignum AgTech, JUA Technologies International LLC, Karyosoft LLC, Krishi LLC, LeafSpec AgTech, Ongenia LLC, Phicrobe LLC, Progeny Drone Inc., Rogo Ag LLC, Verility Inc., VinSense LLC and ZeaVaxx.
With foreign animal disease such as African swine fever closer than ever to the United States, the National Pork Board has launched its first-ever innovation challenge that deals with the potential need of mass carcass disposal. The challenge is seeking new and innovative methods of pig mortality disposal that go beyond the existing methods of burial, incineration, composting and landfills and provide pig farmers with more options. Those who successfully submit ideas through the challenge’s four tiers receive increasing monetary awards, meaning top innovators could receive up to $46,000. NPB will accept entries through July. For more information and rules, visit go.porkcheckoff.org/innovation
Governor Eric J. Holcomb today issued a proclamation declaring May 1 – 7 as Small Business Week in Indiana, celebrating the more than 529,000 small businesses in Indiana and the more than 1.2 million hardworking Hoosiers they employ.
“This week, we recognize all the small businesses driving our state’s economy forward,” said Gov. Holcomb. “Indiana is laser-focused on fostering a healthy ecosystem for small businesses, startups and businesses looking to expand their footprint. It is the entrepreneurial drive, determination and grit that has become woven into the Hoosier sprit and vital to the great quality of life we enjoy in Indiana.”
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) will recognize eight Hoosier small businesses that have worked with the Indiana Small Business Development Center (SBDC), a program of the IEDC, to start, grow or pivot their small businesses. These awards, presented in conjunction with the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) National Small Business Week, honor the entrepreneurs’ and small businesses’ achievements and contributions to grow Indiana’s economy and strengthen communities across the state.
The 2022 honorees are:
The Indiana SBDC, a program of the IEDC, helps Hoosier small businesses and entrepreneurs start, grow, finance, innovate and transition through no-cost, confidential business advising and training. For more information about the Indiana SBDC, visit isbdc.org.
The investment will help Solinftec expand its digital farm operations platform leveraging real-time data to make farming practices more efficient, sustainable, and resilient to changing weather and climate conditions.
Solinftec, one of the world’s largest independent precision agriculture companies, has secured a $60 million growth investment round led by the Lightsmith Group. The investment will enable the company to further expand its digital farm operations platform in North America and South America. Lightsmith is joining existing investors in the company, Unbox Capital, which also participated in the round, and Circularis Partners (TPG ART). Additional undisclosed investors are also participating in the round.
Solinftec’s digital farm operating system is used to manage more than 27 million acres in Brazil, the United States, and across Latin America, by growers, cooperatives, and agricultural retailers for field crops such as sugarcane, soy, corn, and cotton, and perennial crops such as citrus, coffee, and timber. Solinftec serves 85% of Brazilian sugarcane growers, the top 5 grains producers in Brazil, and GROWMARK, one of North America’s largest agricultural cooperatives. The company is based in Aracatuba, Brazil and West Lafayette, Indiana, and has more than 700 employees worldwide.
Since 2007, Solinftec has been developing solutions to solve the practical challenges faced by growers in managing their complex farming operations. The company deploys sensors, computers, and displays in farm equipment to provide customers with a rich set of real-time, in-field data on crops, equipment, inputs, and weather conditions. Solinftec’s farm operations management software, powered by its artificial intelligence platform, ALICE AI, allows customers to optimally schedule and plan their farming operations and to make real-time decisions and adjustments to ensure the best, real-world results. ALICE AI is an integrated, end-to-end farm operations management platform covering all key operations and equipment on farms, including planting, spraying, harvesting, and tendering. Solinftec recently added to its farm operations management platform with the launch of its robot to autonomously scan and monitor fields, providing farmers and agronomists with a new level of data to further increase yields, avoid wasted inputs, and lower environmental impacts.
Lightsmith’s investment is part of its focus on investing in growth-stage climate resilience solutions companies – technology companies in agriculture and food, energy, water, finance, and supply chains that can help to assess and manage the increased risks and impacts from climate change. “As climate change and other disruptions continue to put pressure on agricultural productivity and food costs, we need to scale solutions that can help farmers increase productivity per acre while reducing input usage and increasing their responsiveness to changing climate and weather conditions,” notes Sanjay Wagle, Managing Director at the Lightsmith Group. “We are excited to partner with Solinftec in their next stage of growth to become the ‘operating system’ for intelligent, sustainable, and resilient farming.”
“Disruptive technology, in other words, artificial intelligence, data, and automation, can help the agricultural sector overcome its biggest challenge: to produce more food in every square meter of land, with less impact,” said Solinftec CEO Britaldo Hernandez. “Our mission is to give each farm a sustainable future, promoting the accessibility of technologies to producers and transforming agriculture into a more productive practice, while preserving the planet,” he added.
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