HexGn Research · 2019
Top AgriTech Startups 2019
HexGn’s 2019 watch-list of standout AgriTech startups — the companies reshaping the sector, with where they were based and what they did.
This is an archived HexGn research list from 2019, preserved for reference — the AgriTech startups our analysts singled out as ones to watch. For a current read on AgriTech across the India–Gulf corridor, see our Research & Intelligence practice.
The list
46 AgriTech startups to watch
Impossible Foods
Redwood City, California, United States
Impossible Foods develops a new generation of meats and cheeses made entirely from plants. Using animals to make meat is a prehistoric and destructive technology. Animal agriculture occupies almost half the land on earth, consumes a quarter of our freshwater and destroys our ecosystems. So they doing something about it and making meat using plants, so that we never have to use animals again. That way, we can eat all the meat we want, for as long as we want. And save the best planet in the known universe.
Beyond Meat
Manhattan Beach, California, United States
At Beyond Meat, they believe there is a better way to feed the planet. Our mission is to create The Future of Protein® – delicious plant-based burgers, sausage, crumbles, and more– made directly from simple plant-based ingredients. By shifting from animal, to plant-based meat, they are creating one savory solution that solves four growing issues attributed to livestock production: human health, climate change, constraints on natural resources and animal welfare.
Indigo
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Indigo is harnessing nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet. Indigo improves grower profitability, environmental sustainability, and consumer health through the use of natural microbiology and digital technologies.
Meicai
Beijing, China
Meicai sells agricultural products online that aims to change agriculture, rural areas, and farmers through the Internet.
ProducePay
Los Angeles, California, United States
ProducePay is the leading industry resource for produce trading. ProducePay provides produce growers, shippers, and distributors with the tools to expand their business. They provide the data you need to drive sales and make smart buying and selling decisions. On the platform you can find pricing, movement, weather, and seasonal trends data – all in one place.
Pivot Bio
Berkeley, California, United States
The planet needs a clean alternative to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer now. Pivot Bio has the solution. Pivot Bio will offer the first in-field solution to biological nitrogen fixation, available to farmers for 2019 planting in select states in the USA. Delivered as an in-furrow application, their first-generation product adheres to the plants’ roots and feeds the crop daily without leaching, volatilization or denitrification.
Plenty Inc.
South San Francisco, California, United States
Indoor, vertical farming allows us to use a fraction of the water and land traditionally needed to grow beautiful and bountiful crops. Plenty builds its indoor vertical farming farms minutes from where people live, so the produce is only a short drive from your favorite store or restaurant. Plenty can harvest and deliver produce as quickly as the same day, which means their produce is fresher, has longer shelf life and shorter food miles.
Apeel Sciences
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Apeel is a family of plant-derived coatings that fresh food growers, suppliers, and retailers use to keep produce fresh. Produce with Apeel stays fresh two to three times longer, which promotes more sustainable growing practices, better quality food, and less food waste for everyone. For growers, suppliers, and retailers, Apeel is the only postharvest solution that creates an optimal microclimate inside every piece of produce, which leads to extended shelf life and transportability — with reduced reliance on refrigeration and controlled atmosphere.
Farmers Business Network
San Carlos, California, United States
Farmers Business Network connects farmers to share knowledge and gain trusted insights about their farms, inputs, and practices. Created by farmers for farmers, FBN is an independent and unbiased farmer-to-farmer network of thousands of American farms. FBN democratizes farm information by making the power of anonymous aggregated analytics available to all FBN members. The FBN Network helps level the playing field for independent farmers with unbiased information, profit enhancing farm analysis, and network buying power
Soylent
Los Angeles, California, United States
Soylent is engineered nutrition made from plant based Soy. They carefully and purposefully choose each ingredient to offer a complete meal in every bottle of Ready-to-Drink Soylent and each scoop of Soylent Powder.
Benson Hill Biosystems
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Benson Hill Biosystems is an agricultural biotechnology company focused on the development of traits to increase intrinsic crop yield. Their multidisciplinary approach – which combines genetics, biology, software and machine learning – is the key to their vision to help improve food production by empowering innovators across the food and agriculture supply chain
Bowery Farming Inc
New York, United States
Bowery Farming uses high-tech approaches such as robotics, LED lightning and data analytics to grow leafy greens indoors
SafeTraces
Livermore, California, United States
Food tech has not kept pace with the increasing challenges of global food supply. Consumers are uncertain about the origin and safety of the food they eat, and the industry struggles with food recalls, fraud, and adulteration. We are here to change that! Drawing on nature, we deliver clarity about the safety, purity, and provenance of our food.
Ceres Imaging
Oakland, California, United States
Aerial spectral imaging for agriculture. Their technology detects water, fertilizer, pest and disease issues weeks before the naked eye. Ceres Imaging captures, processes, and delivers high-resolution spectral imagery as an agriculture service. They help growers make important resource allocation decisions by showing them real-time plant health throughout the growing season.
Conservis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Conservis is the leading independent farm management software system, providing powerful data tools and unparalleled customer support for family and institutional farms.
Modern Meadow
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Modern Meadow is a dedicated team of individuals pioneering the creation of biologically advanced materials. They seek to transform the material world by unlocking the power of nature to inspire design for a healthier planet. Biofabricated materials are animal-free, leaving a lighter footprint on the planet. Inspired by leather, their biofabricated materials can take on any shape and form, opening up a world of creative possibilities.
Ninjacart
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Ninjacart is India’s Leading B2B agri-marketing platform that connects farmers to businesses.
Ripple Foods
Emeryville, California, United States
Ripple Foods makes non-dairy milk with just as much protein as milk and half the sugar.
Gousto
London, England, United Kingdom
Gousto is an online meal-kit manufacturer and retailer, using AI and automation to provide extensive choice and personalisation.
BrightFarms
New York, United States
BrightFarms ® grows the freshest local produce, delivered to your supermarket within 24 hours of harvest year-round, using sustainable growing methods.
Infarm
Berlin, Germany
Infarm is an urban farming services company that develops farming tech for grocery stores, restaurants, and local distribution centres.
Prospera Technologies
Tel Aviv, Israel
Predictable, optimized yield. With up to 95% accurate yield predictions, Prospera provides your sales and purchasing teams with accurate supply forecasts to closely match demand dynamics. It maximizes farm output through optimal variety allocation, planting & harvest planning, inputs selection, and protocol enhancement.
FarmLogs
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
With FarmLogs, a farmer can, monitor field conditions, plan and manage crop production and Market the grain.
Terramera
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Terramera provides intelligence developing safer, more effective plant-based replacements to synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Full Harvest
San Francisco, California, United States
The first B2B marketplace for imperfect and surplus produce.
Flow Kana
San Francisco, California, United States
The first sustainable, sun-grown cannabis brand to represent two of CA’s most special micro-climates and their small farmer ecosystems.
CropX
Netanya, HaMerkaz, Israel
CropX an ag-analytics company, develops cloud based software solutions integrated with wireless sensors, which boosts crops yield
Gotham Greens
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Gotham Greens designs, builds, and operates commercial scale greenhouse facilities in urban areas for fresh vegetable production.
Telesense
Sunnyvale, California, United States
It is the smartest way to monitor grain, reduce spoilage and operational costs with wireless, real-time environmental monitoring solutions for grain production, storage and transport.
Perfect Day Foods
Berkeley, California, United States
Perfect Day Foods is feeding a growing world with sustainable, healthy, humane milk.
Farmobile
Leawood, Kansas, United States
Farmobile’s advanced technology delivers a collect-share-monetize digital strategy. They specialize in collecting second-by-second agronomic and machine data from a mixed fleet. And, we organize it into a portable data standard for live viewing, easy downloads, API streaming and permission-based sharing with trusted advisors. They offer farmers revenue-generating opportunities through the Farmobile DataStore℠.
Bombay Hemp Company
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Bombay Hemp Company, incorporated in 2013, are an Agro-based enterprise reimagining the future of Indian agriculture and sustainable living with hemp as our lens. Hemp’s uses are kaleidoscopic. Pull its Fibre out and it’ll give you Yarn; chop it into Softwood, it’ll give you material to build Shelter; study its Genetics, and you’ll find Medicine.
Agrostar
Pune, Maharashtra, India
First & Largest “Direct To Farmer” mobile commerce platform for Agriculture in India.
Taranis
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
Taranis uses deep learning on proprietary data sets to predict and prevent crop disease and pest losses.
Trace Genomics
Burlingame, California, United States
Advanced prevention and management of agricultural diseases.
Semios
San Francisco, California, United States
Semios delivers precision data and intelligence to growers for daily decision making that increases crop value.
AgBiome
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
AgBiome discovers and develops innovative biological and trait products for crop protection.
Abundant Robotics
Hayward, California, United States
As robotics researchers, we’ve broken new ground in a variety of fields. For the past four years we’ve focused on hard problems in agriculture and are now excitedly preparing to launch our first commercial products. We’re a team of experts who love collaborating with smart, thoughtful, open minded people who are driven to build things that do useful work. We’d love for you to come help build one of the next great companies serving agriculture.
Crowd Cow
Seattle, Washington, United States
Crowd Cow works with small family farms to let users choose their cow and their cut.
CroFarm
Gurgaon, Haryana, India
“Consumers get access to produce direct from farms which is much fresher and lasts longer … we help reduce wastage even at your home.
CiBO Technologies
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
We combine science, data, and software to develop virtual agricultural ecosystems that unlock previously unattainable outcomes for customers
SuperMeat
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
SuperMeat is a scientific and ideological driven effort to supply the world animal-friendly and sustainable means to produce meat. We’ve joined forces with leading conventional meat industry and pharmaceutical companies, bringing together cutting edge technology from both worlds to form the next agricultural revolution of meat production, without growing a single animal.
Stellapps
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Stellapps is an end-to-end dairy technology solutions company – the first of its kind in India.
Wefarm
London, England, United Kingdom
The world’s largest farmer-to-farmer digital network.
Snap Kitchen
Austin, Texas, United States
Snap Kitchen is dedicated to bringing our customers flavorful, handcrafted food
Feed
Paris, Ile-de-France, France
Feed is a French foodtech startup that designs complete meals, in formats adapted to active people.
Want the current corridor view on AgriTech?
This is an archived 2019 HexGn research report, kept online for reference. For an up-to-date read on AgriTech across the India–Gulf corridor — and what it means for your next move — talk to our research team.