About

Augmenta Agriculture Technologies (Augmenta) is a deep-tech Greek start-up. It was established in 2016 when George Varvarelis and Dimitris Evangelopoulos, frustrated with the agriculture process being stuck with the same inefficient system since ages, decided to provide a solution for fast and easy uptake of the most modern farming techniques. Augmenta’s vision is to be the enabler for sustainable and productive agriculture through the wide uptake of precision methods among all farmers. It adopted the mission of automating and precisely measuring the most financially effective farm operations, like the use of nutrients and chemicals, through real-time, multispectral computer vision. Augmenta's goal is to increase the efficiency of every hectare of land, ultimately augmenting the bottom-line of the average farmer. The Company's success was recognized by Forbes, which listed the founders among the 30 under 30 List for Greece in 2019.

Solution & Product

Augmenta's System is an all-in-one plug & play system that is mounted to the front of a tractor. As the tractor operates in the field, the software uses AI/ML models to analyse the captured images, determine the status of each inch of crop and regulate inputs. The scanning system also communicates with the sprayer/spreader using the ISOBUS protocol to maintain a constant flow of information for variable rate applications. The system maximises yield, quality and reduces crop inputs. The AI/ML software continuously improves itself using data collected before, during, and after crop treatments are deployed. This makes it a resilient and long-lasting investment for farmers. The system has been developed initially for 15 crops: Barley; Cotton; Corn; Rapeseed/Canola; Rice; Sorghum; Sugar cane; Soybean; Wheat, Grapes, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Onions, Leafy greens, and Sunflowers.

Innovation & Scalability

The Augmenta System has a great scale-up potential due to: 1 ) Technical features. Its hardware is built using off- the shelf NIR and 4k range cameras (Sony and Nvidia). The company will have a small in-house assembly line that can be easily outsourced to contract manufacturers around the world, enabling quick and non-capital intensive industrialization. The built-in AI/ML-driven software and cloud analytics, are highly scalable and able to improve themselves using sophisticated AI algorithms, meaning that the more the innovation is adopted by farmers, in Europe and internationally, the better its performance improvement will be. The technology is scalable since it improves several tasks in crop input, crop types, and increased predictive capability for crop management, which will be expanded in the future for weed and plant disease control. 2) Regulatory requirements: Augmenta has already considered the regulations needed to achieve market authorisation. The company is in the process of filing for the CE mark and will be able to timely comply with the regulatory requirements. 3) Commercialisation strategy and business model: Augmenta will target large farms and cooperatives as go-to-market customers, starting from 2023 in the EU and from 2024 worldwide. Augmenta will sell the system through big international distributors that already have a strong presence in the market and a solid network of customers supporting quick market expansion.

Traction & achievements

In pilot testing/evaluation customers, our system improved yield by 11% and crop quality by 20%, and decreased chemical usage by up to 40%, resulting in a net gain of an average of €200 per ha per season. Applied across the EUs 173M ha of arable land, this would bring EU farmers an additional €34.6B revenue. Augmenta's system supports sustainable farming, making it economically effective for the farmers, reducing the need for institutional economic help. It also offers the possibility of directly measuring inputs to the fields, allowing for accurate monitoring of the agricultural practices. Currently, the Augmenta System has been deployed 73 times across 17 different countries and our customers have used the system in more than 36.000 acres.

Team & Why Us

Augmenta's team currently comprises 46 members, all with high-level academic backgrounds with specialisations (M.Sc or PhD in Engineering, Robotic, Agriculture, Maths, and Business). The team includes software and hardware engineers, agronomy, operation and communication experts. Altogether, the team brings tens of years of commercial experience and relevant technical expertise, spanning from agriculture, business, algorithm and software development, and the optimization of manufacturing processes. Augmenta plans to further expand its team by hiring a CFO, additional software developers, hardware engineers, and sales managers to finalize product development and sustain and coordinate the consequent business expansion.

Funding Needs

Developing an Agritech solution is a quite complex endeavor. Our team includes Software and Hardware Engineers, Agronomists, ML/AI, and Computer Vision Scientists, as well as Sales, Marketing, HR, Admin, and Operations managers. Our strongest asset nevertheless, is that many of us are also farmers, including the two co-founders. In order to achieve our goals, the product and business teams need to grow to 100 employees in the coming two years.