Four agricultural start-ups receive funding

From soil sensors to satellite navigation: the Federal Ministry of Agriculture is supporting the development of agricultural start-ups that promise innovation for food and agriculture.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank handed over the first four funding decisions for agricultural start-ups. Minister Cem Özdemir presented the funding decisions to the start-ups Constellr, Crop.zone, Feldklasse and Organifarms in January.

The Constance-based start-up Organifarms has developed a harvesting robot to make labor-intensive fruit and vegetable harvesting processes easier. It is designed to harvest strawberries, check the quality and pack the fruit. The Freiburg-based start-up Constellr wants to use a fleet of satellites to collect data in order to analyze plant and soil health. The aim is to use this data to develop resource-efficient applications. The Aachen-based company Crop-zone is also focusing on soil health. The founders want to combat weeds with application technology instead of chemicals, thereby improving the quality of the environment. The aim of start-up Feldklasse from Meerbusch is similar. The company wants to reduce the burden on the environment with a hoeing technique that combats weeds without harming crops.

It is precisely this kind of innovation that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture wants to support and promote. The new funding is particularly aimed at the early financing phase, as this usually takes longer for agricultural start-ups than in other sectors. The reason for this is the dependence on nature. Certain products simply cannot be tested in the field in winter. This often results in financing gaps at the beginning, but these are to be bridged by the new funding.