60 AgriFood Tech Startups Nominated for 2019 AgFunder Innovation Awards – Vote Now!

*VOTING EXTENDED UNTIL MARCH 1, 9AM ET!*

We’re very excited to open our Third Annual AgFunder AgriFood Tech Innovation Awards, where we recognize the innovators and entrepreneurs driving the agrifood tech sector forward.

Our nomination committee of experienced agrifood tech investors has selected a shortlist of startups for you–our network of 60,000+ subscribers–to vote on.

Voting will close at 9 am ET on March 1. The winners will be exclusively announced at the ReThink Agri-Food Innovation Week in San Francisco on March 20 at a special networking evening bridging the World Agri-Tech and the Future Food-Tech Summits.

Last year, we awarded 12 startups in 12 categories across Farm Tech, Supply Chain, and Retail & Consumer Innovation.

Since then those winners have raised over $420 million, including a $114 million bridge round for Impossible Foods and a $13 million Series A for Trace Genomics, which AgFunder went on to invest in.

This year we are following the same process as last, whereby we ask you to vote for the winner in each category. This shortlist was nominated by this year’s awards committee, a who’s who of agrifood tech venture capital.

Thank you very much to our amazing selection committee, who include:

Andrew Chung from 1955 Capital, the ex-Khosla exec’s venture fund focused on developing nation challenges.

Dan Phillips from the most established agrifood tech-focused venture capital firm Cultivian Sandbox Ventures

Niccolo Manzoni from European food tech VC Five Seasons Ventures

Brian Mixer from early-stage tech investor Middleland Capital with a significant food and agriculture portfolio

Gil Demeter from one of very few dedicated growth stage investors in agrifood tech Pontifax Agtech

Sanjeev Krishnan from agrifood tech’s largest venture firm by AUM S2G Ventures

Camila Petignat from the Argentina office of agtech accelerator group The Yield Lab 

*The selection committee was only allowed to vote for one of their portfolio companies in each category, or at a 1-to-5 ratio of all their nominations.

AgFunder was nominated in the “Most Valuable Resource” category (thanks guys) but we’ve obviously recused ourselves. Some of our portfolio companies are in the shortlist, as nominated by the committee.

Click here to vote and make your voice heard!

Here are the shortlisted candidates:

Farm Tech

Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A

1. Aker Technologies – regional and in-field pest & crop diagnostics
2. Augean Robotics – a collaborative robot that can follow you
3. Bear Flag Robotics – autonomous technology for farms
4. FieldIn – smart spray & harvest management for agriculture
5. Row7 – a seed company built by chefs and breeders

Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond

1. Benson Hill Biosystems – computational crop trait discovery and gene editing for ag platform
2. Crop Enhancement – crop coating pest protection technology
3. Indigo – microbial crop inputs-cum-grain marketplace
4. Sentera – field sensor and AI technology startup
5. Sound Agriculture – sustainable crop technology using plant phenotyping, molecular biology and deep learning

Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A

1. RootWave (UK) – herbicide alternative using electricity
2. Seed-X (Israel) – machine vision technology to revolutionize seed breeding and production cycles.
3. Small Robot Company (UK) – robots to seed and care for individuals plants in a crop
4. Tarfin (Turkey) – fintech for farmers, and investors
5. WeedOUT (Israel) – exploiting sterility against resistant weeds

Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond

1. Agrofy (Argentina) – online marketplace for farm machinery, vehicles, farmland, tools, equipment, insurance and more
2. Equinom (Israel) – computational biology to breed crops with improved characteristics without genetic manipulation
3. Intelligent Growth Solutions (UK) – high-tech vertical farming technologies
4. Solinftec (Brazil) – end-to-end machine data analytics platform for broad-acre crops based in Brazil
5. Tropic Biosciences (UK) – gene-editing technology to optimize coffee and banana crops

Supply Chain Tech

Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A

1. Athena Intelligence – uses satellite imagery, it automates compliance and sustainability reporting
2. Aromyx – a platform for the digital capture of scent and taste
3. Brightseed – discovers plant-based nutritional bioactives from commodity crops for everyday food products
4. Cambridge Crops – natural and edible solutions for extending freshness
5. SnapDNA – next-generation DNA detection platform for food safety, traceability, and provenance

Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond

1. FoodLogiQ – food safety and traceability software
2. Full Harvest – a B2B marketplace focused on reducing food waste
3. Hazel Technologies – food packaging inserts to extend shelf-life of produce
4. Phylagen – provides technology that monitors, maps, and manages microbiomes
5. Sustainable Bioproducts – a biotechnology company developing a new way to grow edible protein

Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A

1. AgreeMarket (Argentina) – the first global agri commodities marketplace
2. AgNext Technologies (India) – agrifood supply chain sensor technology
3. Amai Proteins (Israel) – a computational protein design biotech firm aimed at the food market
4. EscaVox (Australia) – location and temperature tracking for the food supply chain
5. Inno-3B (Canada) – vertical farming systems developer

Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond

1. CargoX (Brazil) – fleet optimization technology for freight companies
2. DeHaat (India) – agribusiness marketplace, connecting farmers with corporate buyers
3. IntelloLabs (India) – computer vision technology for farmers, traders, millers, retailers, and consumers to communicate on product quality, infestation, plant health and more
4. Novolyze (France) – microorganisms to improve food safety validation
5. Nuritas (Ireland) – identifies peptides that have health benefits for food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and supplement ingredients

Retail & Consumer

Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A

1. Berkeley Brewing Science – engineering brewer’s yeast to do incredible things
2. Finless Foods – cultured fish developer
3. Planetarians– upcycling by-products into alternative protein at the price of flour
4. Prime Roots (formerly Terramino Foods) – fungi-based seafood and meat protein alternatives

Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond

1. CafeX – robotic coffee bars
2. Impossible Foods – plant-based burger that bleeds
3. Label Insight – product transparency for retailers through cloud-based data engine
4. Ripple Foods – plant-based dairy products
5. Zume Pizza – robotic pizza delivery restaurant

Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A

1. Alchemy FoodTech (Singapore) – diabetes-fighting food ingredient
2. Aleph Farms (Israel) – cell-grown meat that resembles free-range meat
3. Future Meat Technologies (Israel) – cell cultured meat
4. Mimica Lab (UK) – innovative milk labeling technology
5. Farmy (Switzerland) – independent producer-focused eGrocer

Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond

1. InFarm – vertical farming for retailers
2. Mosa Meat (Holland) – cell cultured meat
3. NotCo (Chile) – plant-based, animal-free food products
4. Simple Feast (Denmark) – organic food delivery
5. Ukko (Israel) – immunology, computational biology, and plant science to combat food allergies

Most valuable agrifood tech accelerator program

1. Bits x Bites – China
2. Hatch – Ireland
3. IndieBio – California
4. Thrive – California

Cast Your Vote Here! 

The awards are supported by Innovature, a joint project of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), Innovature. Innovature aims to highlight progress in agriculture, food and wellness, in particuar striving to explore and contextualize gene editing advancements and to promote dialogue and clarity on agriculture innovation under development. Innovature believes in what’s possible when science and nature work together to help sustain our planet for generations to come.

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