The winners of the 2018 Agfunder Innovation Awards were announced on Tuesday, March 20 at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco, CA.
Last year, we awarded 23 startups across five categories. Since then those winners have raised over $650 million, including one of the year’s largest rounds, a $110 million Series D for Farmers Business Network. And we even had an exit with Blue River Technology — winner of the Most Innovative US Startups at Series A and Beyond category — acquired by strategic heavyweight John Deere.
This year we have refined our process to make it easier for our network to participate and created a shortlist of candidates for each category to vote from. To remain as impartial in the process as possible, we put together a nomination committee of global agrifood tech investors to nominate startups into each category and we asked our community to vote. 5,000 votes later these are the winners.
Farm Tech
Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: Trace Genomics
Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: Farmers Business Network
Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: Smart Shepherd
Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: The Yield
Supply Chain
Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: Ripe.io
Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: Apeel Sciences
Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: Phenospex
Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: AgriDigital
Retail & Consumer
Most Innovative US Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: New Wave Foods
Most Innovative US Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: Impossible Foods
Most Innovative International Startup Pre-Series A
Winner: Wasteless
Most Innovative International Startup Series A and Beyond
Winner: Winnow
Resource
Most Valuable AgriFood Tech Accelerator Program
Winner: The Yield Lab
Congrats to all the winners!
The World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit is an international networking and deal-making event for agribusinesses, solution providers, entrepreneurs and investors, which is held annually in London and San Francisco. With over 1,000 attendees from the US, Australia, China, Europe, Israel and Latin America, the goal of the summit is to accelerate the commercialization of advanced agricultural technologies by supporting global partnerships and collaborations. This year’s focus is on new data platforms, robotics, soil health and synthetic biology, featuring 60 game-changing speakers and the most exciting start-ups on the market.
