Portfolio Showcase | Featured Startups

2023 Showcase + Field Day

We hosted 16 startups at our 2023 Portfolio Showcase + Field Day this year who had the opportunity to demonstrate their technologies for investors and farmers. Startups focused on plant and soil health, weed resistance, planting solutions, grain and bin management, fertilizer and fungicide optimization, to name a few, will share how farmers have informed their product development.

2023 Showcase Pitches & Interviews

Scroll to read about all of the participating Startups.

 

View this year's pitches from the Startups

Bioverse Labs offers a mobile app, integrated with IoT sensors, for monitoring insect population dynamics autonomously to reduce risks and inputs through precise biological control.

Bioverse Labs

Bioverse Labs was featured on the sunset farm tour portion of our Portfolio Showcase + Field Day.  Francisco D’Elia, CEO, and Dylan Riffle, COO, described how they are automating species monitoring to help farmers and governments protect food supplies and human health. Innovative technologies like this offer the promise of more targeted insect control, reduced pesticide usage and more effective management of invasive species to protect our food, fiber and fuel supply.

Continuum Ag is a soil health data intelligence company and the catalyst for sustainable agriculture

Continuum Ag

Carolyn King, Lead Agronomist for Continuum Ag, joined us at our Portfolio Showcase + Field Day in August and did a great job demonstrating the latest advancements with their technology! They are a soil health data intelligence company that uses its TopSoil Tool to enable farmers to profit from improving their soil health.

Image of a blonde woman smiling at the camera.
A man and woman looking at a laptop screen and having a discussion

Earthsense produces an autonomous under-canopy phenotyping and cover crop planting robot.

Earthsense

EVOIA™ uses fire to convert sustainable raw biomass to plant-beneficial compounds and then transform them into highly active, consistent biostimulants in liquid form

Stephanie Gable and Keith Vodrazka of EVOIA brought the fire to our annual Portfolio Showcase + Field Day in August, and it was such a pleasure to hear from them! Thank you for explaining the production-boosting benefits of fire-derived liquid biochar and its contribution to sustainable production agriculture.

EVOIA

Global Neighbor uses the power of light to make weed seeds collected at harvest non-viable to prevent spread and reduce herbicide-resistance in grain crops.

Global Neighbor

Holganix charges soil with more than 800 species of soil microbes to improve plant performance.

We got to see Holganix Bio800+ first-hand during the sunset farm tour portion of our Showcase + Field Day event. This versatile product with more than 800 species of microbes was applied on soybeans and corn to increase plant health and productivity.

Holganix

Innatrix produces sustainable biological products to control untreatable crop diseases, pests, and weeds.

Dr. Jiarui Li, CEO of Innatrix, updated farmers, investors and other stakeholders at the annual Portfolio Showcase + Field Day about their advancements with a biological platform to produce sustainable, eco-friendly biopesticides for currently untreatable crop diseases and pests. He also shared more details about recent grant awards from the National Science Foundation and the United Soybean Board. Congratulations to the Innatrix team

Innatrix

Grain Weevil was featured at our Portfolio Showcase + Field Day in August, and they did not disappoint! Their robots level grain, break crusts, do inspections and feed grain into the extraction augers inside dirty, dusty grain bins to keep farmers out. No boots in the grain!

Grain Weevil

Leaftech Ag delivers a handheld “Digital Lab” that geo-locates and analyzes a plant’s leaf for nutrient composition.

John Mascoe, CEO of Leaftech Ag, was a part of arena demonstrations and had quite a captive audience at our Portfolio Showcase + Field Day! Their technology features a handheld “Digital Lab” that geo-locates and analyzes a plant’s leaf for nutrient composition. This on-demand tissue analysis technology provides 30x more site-specific data points at 3% of the cost in 3-5 minutes vs. 3-5 days as compared to current methods.

Leaftech Ag

Lepidext is evolutionizing insect pest control by introducing biopesticides that are safe, effective, species-specific, and easy to use.

Lepidext

Thank you, Maria Labreveux, for representing Lepidext at the AgLaunch Portfolio Showcase + Field Day! Maria shared with participants how Lepidext is revolutionizing insect pest control with their biopesticides that are easy to use, effective and species-specific as a safe solution for the farmer, the consumer and the environment.

RANTIZO LOGO

Rantizo provides complete turnkey drone spraying systems and support services for custom applicators, agribusinesses, and contractor.

The Dickens Ag team showed up and showed out at our annual Portfolio Showcase + Field Day!  Jeff Dickens and team brought their Rantizo drone spraying system to demonstrate how it enables more production with less.  Rantizo offers a complete turnkey system for individuals, custom applicators and ag retailers to provide drone custom application services for their customers for more effective and efficient impact.  Fun fact: Rantizo participated as an early-stage startup in the 2017 AgLaunch365 accelerator in Memphis, TN.  Just five years later and about 150 miles away, TN’s Henry County Co-op applied 5,000 acres with their Rantizo system. 

Rantizo

Rantizo provides complete turnkey drone spraying systems and support services for custom applicators, agribusinesses, and contractor.

Thank you to Jayson Ryner, CEO of ReEnvision Ag, for participating in our annual Portfolio Showcase + Field Day. Their planter system holds the only provisional patent on a system of placing the seeds using a cone-shaped dibble to plant seeds in a precise location at an exact spacing.  allows farmers to be the best stewards of the environment by reducing tillage and allowing the soil to be healthier.

ReEnvision Ag

Salin 247 builds light-weight, fully autonomous, electric-powered chassis attaches easily to customizable implements.

Dave Krog, CEO of Salin 247, made the trip from Iowa to demonstrate their lightweight, small-scale equipment at our Portfolio Showcase + Field Day. They are literally autonomously driving the future of agriculture! Dave shared how farmer input has shaped the product design and development from tires to batteries.

Salin 247

Sentinel Fertigation leverages modern technology to empower precision fertigation through crop monitoring and nitrogen management solutions

 

Shoutout to Shane Forney of Sentinel Fertigation for joining us at our recent Portfolio Showcase + Field Day! They specialize in managing Nitrogen for healthy crop growth. Their N-Time™ software provides image-based nitrogen application scheduling recommendations for farm operations using fertigation. Thank you for your presentation!

Sentinel Fertigation

SPORNADO LOGO

Spornado is an early alert system for crop diseases that uses highly sensitive DNA analysis to help growers optimize crop protection management.

It’s always great to learn more from our friends at Spornado, and we’re thankful CEO Kristine White and CTO Mike Saleh joined us at our annual Portfolio Showcase + Field Day in August. The Spornado Sampler is an innovative, easy-to-use crop disease early alert system that changes everything. Thank you for your demonstration; it was very informative!

Susterre is pioneering the use of ultra-high pressure water jets in row crop planting in no-till and cover crop applications

Michael Cully, Founder and CEO of Susterre, demonstrated their ultra-high pressure water jet technology for row crop planting at our recent Portfolio Showcase + Field Day. Their technology promotes regenerative practices like no-till farming, permanently covering crops, lowering planting costs, and adding time to the planting window.