San Diego-based acceleration fund Radicle Growth has announced the five agriculture and food tech startups picked to compete next month for $250K of investment.
This year’s Radicle Challenge by Corteva at World Agri-Tech will see five early stage companies pioneering agricultural solutions using breakthrough technologies pitch in San Francisco on 16 March, with the winner revealed on 17 March.
“In just five weeks, we had our largest pool of applicants ever for a Radicle Challenge from across the globe. This confirms that entrepreneurs are hungry not only for the funding to advance the development of their technologies, but also for invaluable coaching and hands-on refining of their technology from some of the biggest names in agriculture,” said Kirk Haney, Managing Partner, Radicle Growth. “Where traditionally we see the highest concentration of applicants in digital ag technologies, we saw more entries than ever before in novel farm systems and biologicals and close to 65% from outside of the U.S. We look forward to having all of these rising stars in one room next month to pitch to our panel of judges.”
The Final Five
● Aquaoso: a SaaS water risk analytics company dubbed the “credit score for water,” which helps ag lenders, investors, growers and shippers understand the financial impacts of water risk on operators.
● Holganix: a liquid soil treatment that contains a consortium of 800+ microbes to drive yield, soil health and reduce the need for pesticides and fertilizers.
● Nanobio Designs: a handheld device that uses self-assembling nanoparticles to test for the presence of GMOs.
● Scanit Technologies: An in-field platform (for indoor or outdoor growers) to detect plant pathogens when they are airborne and before they infect plants.
● SwarmFarm Robotics: Commercially available robots for autonomous agriculture.
