Is the Agtech Startup Boom Over?

In the past few months there has been a flurry of acquisitions of agtech startups by major players in the industry. Let’s look at a short and hardly complete list of a few of these recent acquisitions:

With startups like these all being recently purchased and absorbed into the larger framework of the digital ag platforms of some major players, one has to wonder if the agtech startup boom is ending.

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It almost feels like this is becoming a game of musical chairs, and what companies are going to find themselves without a seat in one of these large digital ag platforms when the music stops?

Of the startups that do remain, one has to wonder about their survival without either new investment dollars coming in past their B and C investment rounds or a sound enough business plan to get them in the black on their own. I speculate that some of these startups that are lacking in those two areas will either go belly up soon or get purchased for a song by a major player.

MORE BY BEN D. JOHNSON

As for the rest of the agtech space, there are some very large digital ag platforms being assembled by major players in the industry. Monsanto with Climate FieldView and Dow/DuPont with their combination of Encirca, Granular, and AcreValue are both very robust digital ag platforms with a lot of capabilities that are only going to increase over time.

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Little guys with a product with a narrow focus have got to be concerned. Sure, a lot of growers like to deal with companies independent of their seed and chemical manufacturers, but logging on to 15 different websites and transferring all of your data to all of them is a real pain and overwhelming to update the information on a regular basis. We’re at a point where we expect all of this stuff to just flow together with minimal effort. Growers expect that maybe there is some work upfront, but it should be easy on an ongoing basis since that was half the point in doing this anyway. This is where the large digital ag platforms have a huge advantage.

Farmers Edge seems to be filling the independent segment of the market as they also appear to be developing into a digital ag platform, but what are the realistic chances of a new startup coming in and entering this space? When you think of the deep pockets they are up against, do new startups really stand a chance at this stage of the game?

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Avatar for amit amit says:

nice and interest point..
hou are the large digital ag platform today?

Avatar for Luke Bradley Luke Bradley says:

Any new start ups bringing value to the market will still have space providing they can broker access into the major hardware ie: JD and Case IH, Agco. There is still a lot of room for improvement within current platforms and recognising the target market ie: farmers, consultants, retailers, will ensure viability. The shear number of people in these markets yet to commit to ag-tech would suggest that it is a good place to be investing your energy.

Avatar for Ben Johnson Ben Johnson says:

CORRECTION: Syngenta did not acquire Premier Crop but they did become a minority investor.

Avatar for Noel MAGNIN Noel MAGNIN says:

There is no startup boom anywhere, simply startups that have no real innovation and cannot thrive. Within the next startup pool there might be one with real success, this one will be much harder to buy by major players (more expensive).
To date startups have just focused on few easily available data (NDVI and other similar data). There is more to Precison Ag data than NDVI but Engineers just think/thought they could revolutionise Precision Ag by providing an innovative analysis of NDVI. NDVI is not the good data whatever analysis you provide, be it AI (“Artificial Intelligence” it is called ;-)), ML (Machine Learning), or other statistical-based data.
No real innovation in precision ag from the drone industry because they focus on the drone and the analyticals. Focus needs to be on the data collected but it is not technology-only, it requires to understand biology/crops and environmental effects.
I am ready to bring innovations in agronomy, feel free to contact me with correct propositions.