Addressing delegates at the EvokeAg agritech expo in Melbourne, Silicon Valley investment and tech firm SVG Ventures founder John Harnett said he is seeing more NZ agritech start-ups meeting farmers on the ground and integrating well with them to find solutions to their problems.
He also urged Australian counterparts to move further afield in the way NZ, Israel and Irish agritech entrepreneurs have done.
“None of them are large countries and know they have to go offshore.”
More than 60 NZ innovators and start-ups attended the second EvokeAg expo, a venue for new companies seeking investors to meet up, pitch and hopefully finance their businesses to commercialise or to grow in scale.
NZ’s start-up industry has been ranked in the top 10 globally and has its sights set on becoming worth more than $1.4 billion by 2025.
Harnett’s firm works with Fortune 500 companies and he is the founder of Thrive, an agrifood innovation group comprising investors, universities, corporates and researchers.
More corporates are looking outside their own sphere for innovation investment and while accelerator investment funds are good, start-ups usually need a corporate partner to achieve full scale.
He pointed to Bay of Plenty firm Robotics Plus receiving $10 million investment from Yamaha to expand its operations.
The NZ contingent at EvokeAg represented the spectrum of investment scale across the entire agritech sector, including disease diagnosis, virtual fencing and robotics.
The event includes the chance to pitch to potential investors.
Dunedin innovator Olaf Bork was successful in his efforts to seek investment to expand his Mastaplex mastitis diagnostic tool.
The expo was also the platform to showcase Gallagher’s partnership with virtual fencing company Agersens whose eShepherd collar has made virtual fencing a possibility using remote GPS systems to control stock.
Gallagher global marketing manager Mark Harris said the system is due for launch into Queensland later this year, followed by Tasmania then NZ.
Developer Ian Reilly said the collar has revolutionised data processing with its ability to manage much of the data in its own capacity, reducing the need for major data uploads on constricted network links.
“The expectation from the farming community is that virtual fencing will be part of farming with the primary value proposition being to lower labour costs. Remote sensing of livestock is the additional benefit on top.”
Trade and Enterprise technology general manager David Downs said NZ has proved itself as a quality innovator but needs to get better at commercialising that research. It is a trait that appears to be shared with Australian innovators.
