Christchurch-based agricultural technology company CropLogic has announced plans to list on the Australian Stock Exchange after raising money to fund the move via crowd-funding platform Equitise.
CropLogic said it had received a positive response in a short timeframe from the investor community, raising $512,200 via Equitise.
It has appointed Australian corporate advisory Ventnor Capital Pty Ltd to assist with the listing, described as “a Perth-based boutique corporate advisory firm that has been operating in the ASX listed space for more than ten years.”
Ventnor Capital partner, Morgan Barron, said: “The agritech sector is experiencing significant investor interest at present, driven by the need to support global population growth, scarcity of water and need for food security. CropLogic’s proprietary technology and unique value proposition assists crop growers with their irrigation requirements, nitrogen requirements and yield.”
CropLogic says it collects field sensor data, climate data and aerial images and process the data in the cloud to deliver optimised, daily input prescriptions to growers in the format of their choice.”It claims that its services are underpinned by “30 years of scientific research in forecasting plant growth by Plant & Food Research, New Zealand's premier national food research company.”
There is a US precedent that bodes well for CropLogic. In 2010 a US startup, Weatherbill, launched a weather insurance product for farmers based on algorithms that examined current weather data, past history, local conditions and other factors to devise a personalised insurance policy for a farmer.
It also gained access to a huge trove of data from the US Government: 60 years of crop yield data, 14 terabytes of soil data and data from a government network of 159 weather radar stations. Renamed The Climate Corporation, it was bought by global behemoth Monsanto for $US1.1 billion in October 2013.