For commercial farming operations, determining whether or not new tools, technology, and practices work can be a big undertaking. From install and setup costs to helping the team involved climb the learning curve for effective use, even when technologies lead to big benefits, it can be tough to get the ball rolling.

One farm that we’ve learned about recently decided to turn these challenges into a product. The insight is simple– that on the other side of all these tech adoption challenges, there are technologists and companies eager to learn how to overcome them, and to gain third-party information about how their product works in commercial settings. So Boolah, an Australian malt barley grower that manages 70,000 hectares across their network of connected farms, has built a testing and trial business that helps them neutralize the costs of trying out and implementing new tech and tools, while also providing high value data and research to their partners. 

To tell us more about what’s going on at the farm, we’re joined this week by Brooke Sauer, Head of R&D at Boolah. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

For years the food tech space has been rife with companies eager to replace familiar standbys– from protein to sweeteners to colorings– with cheaper, more healthful, or more climate friendly alternatives. There have certainly been a few successes, but there have also been some big and spectacular failures. Whether we’re emerging from the dust of the most recent bust or have a ways to go still, we’re actively watching the space to see what founders and investors alike are learning from the frothy boom cycle with its incredible stats and promises, and from what came after. 

To understand a bit more about how this food tech ingredient space is changing, from products and go-to market to business models and financing, we’re joined this week by Jake Berber, Co-Founder and CEO of Prefer. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

There are a few topics in agtech (and in the tech startup world more broadly) that are truly perennial– problems that must be solved again and again in new and innovative ways as markets, customers, and businesses evolve. Adoption is one of those challenges, and go-to-market strategies are another. We’ve been thinking about the challenge of adoption a lot recently, and also what changes in the marketplace will mean for the retail channel and product distribution for agtech in particular. 

Today, Sarah sits down with Tenacious Ventures’ Matthew Pryor and Shane Thomas, author of Upstream Ag Insights, to do a deep dive on these topics. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

When your organization is tasked with the job of getting growers to adopt new technology, there are a few tried, and frankly, not-so-true options to choose from. The world is lightly littered with various flavors of demonstration farms– properties where technologies can be piloted, field days can be hosted, and farmers can be converted from tech skeptics to believers. But in our experience, the problem with demo farms is just that they don’t usually do that much to actually drive adoption. 

The innovation team at Wine Australia, however, have managed to buck the trend. Their approach to demo farms, and agtech adoption more broadly, is unusual in many ways, and the features that set them apart have led to dramatically improved experiences for farmers and tech companies, ultimately leading to better adoption rates and outcomes for their industry. 

To learn more about their work, and their lessons along the way, we’re sitting down with Paul Smith, General Manager of Research and Innovation, and Dave Gerner, Regional Innovation Program Manager, at Wine Australia to discuss the custom program they built for their industry, which has led to meaningful success in increasing agtech adoption among Australian wine grape growers. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Controlling weeds on farms is a sticky, two part challenge. First, you’ve got to identify the weeds, as distinct from the plants you want to grow. Then, you’ve got to destroy the undesirables and keep the rest. For today’s farmers, these two tasks can seem straightforward, but to do them at the scale required in modern agriculture– not so much. 

Identifying weeds, especially with computer vision, is a topic we discussed on the podcast last year, and now we’re circling back to talk about the available solutions on the destruction side. Herbicides have been the unchallenged behemoth in this space for decades, but as issues with efficacy and environmental impact mount, farmers are increasingly looking to other options. In the last few years we’ve seen many novel solutions– from mechanical tools to microwaves to flamethrowers. 

This week, we’re sitting down with Liam Hescock, Founder and CEO of Azaneo, one of our portfolio companies, to talk about their solution– which harnesses the power of electricity. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

As the new year gets underway, we’ve been thinking about the likely ups and downs ahead for the agtech world. We’ve been searching for insights in the recent announcement that FMC’s corporate venture capital division is shutting its doors, and thinking about what a trend in CVC pullbacks might mean for the lay of the land in agtech. We’ve also been taking time to think about the agtech companies that currently stand out in today’s tough market conditions, and what it is that sets them apart from the pack. 

Today, Sarah sits down with Tenacious Ventures Managing Partner Matthew Pryor and Shane Thomas, author of Upstream Ag Insights, to discuss the news and expectations for agtech in 2025.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

There’s nothing like the end of another year to have us reflecting on the recent successes in the world of agtech, and the many challenges still left to overcome. One thing that has continued to stand out to us in 2024 is the vital need for more business model innovation. 

There’s so much amazing technology that already exists, but for one reason or another, it is not getting adopted or utilized; it’s not delivering on the promised impact or commercial potential. Over the last twelve months we’ve talked to countless entrepreneurs and innovators who are finding novel and fascinating ways to overcome business model barriers, even when they aren’t using those words to describe their efforts. 

So this week, Sarah is sitting down with Tenacious Ventures Managing Partner Matthew Pryor to connect the dots on business model innovation that we’ve discussed in different podcast episodes all year long. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

The history of agriculture is a history of selective breeding. Whether it’s plants or animals, humans have been choosing desirable traits and making sure those traits make it to the next generation for tens of thousands of years. The challenge of this work is, of course, the timeline. Groundbreaking and world-changing advances are possible, but we are limited by seasonality, gestation periods, and even by the level of expertise required to effectively perform the high-tech work. This is the challenge that Tenacious portfolio company Nbryo is tackling– shortening the timeline for genetic advancements in livestock. 

This week, we’re sitting down with Gerard Davis, CEO of Nbyro, to discuss his unconventional journey to the startup, the work the company is doing, and why he thinks genetic interventions are critical climate work. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Despite its importance to both agricultural and environmental outcomes, irrigation has not been a terribly successful subsection of agtech. We have our theories about why that is (we wrote a whole report about it, The agtech adoption dilemma: Irrigation), and many others have also spotted the challenges in this space. 

But when Jairo Trad and his team dug in, they saw an opportunity for business model innovation. Their path, via Argentinian agtech company Kilimo, has been far from smooth, but where they’ve ended up seems to be a unique unlock for adoption and value capture. 

This week, we’re sitting down with Jairo, CEO and Cofounder at Kilimo, who’s spent the last 14 years expanding the boundaries of the ag-water system to find the right answer to the question “who pays for water efficiency improvements.” 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Depending on where you sit, the supremacy of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) action seems inevitable. Corporates are talking about. Investors are talking about it. Governments, regulators, and even farmers are talking about it. And yet for many of us, the questions of what exactly ESG is, what pursuing these goals means, and how soon acting on them will be mandatory remain unanswered. Then just when it feels like we start to get a handle on a definition or a timeline, you leave one geography and enter another, and it seems like all the rules have changed! 

This level of ambiguity has piqued our interest to learn more about trends in ESG, global variations in ESG practices, and what the future might hold. So this week, we’re sitting down with Catherine Marriott, recent Nuffield Australia Awardee, who has spent the last year traveling around the world to learn about the current and future state of ESG in agriculture.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.