Agkonect’s startup journey began in 2017, to provide agriculture with custom farm management data systems. Through our many decades of experience, we knew that agriculture is comprised of many highly diverse sectors (Hort Innovation has 32 member industries). Businesses engaged in one of these sectors, let alone multiples, couldn’t be (and aren’t) well-served by the major farm management platforms and we were sure there was a place for us.
Since then, we have worked in many sectors and established our highly capable technology stack, as well as deep tradecraft. As we learned more about business after participating in the Maersk Foodtrack II accelerator in 2018, we realised the real opportunities lie in scaling our products on a SaaS model, rather than custom work which has high BD-cost and low returns. We recently pivoted to scale our proven products with significant markets.
Our key focus is marketing our AgKonect Turf product to Australia’s 160 turf farmers. Beginning with our pioneer farmer who uses Turf every day indispensably, we are looking for near full uptake. With minor modifications, Turf will provide high value for 1500 golf courses and 2500 bowls clubs – then we have countless sports field and green space managers. Our stack works overseas (proven with clients in Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Vietnam) and we will steadily begin international marketing.
Our other products being used commercially are for aviation fleet management, mussell farms and prawn hatcheries, plus we have systems under development for viticulture and intensive animal farm biosecurity. Using our platform and our modular components, we can easily meet these diverse needs at low cost.
AgKonect has bootstrapped successfully with sweat equity and some revenue, through partnerships and contractors. We now need to employ staff to refine our MVP and increase our capacity for scaling, and are raising a seed round. We invite contact from investors who want to take part in our easily seen potential to grow into large markets with a well-proven MVP with happy, paying, daily users.
Pete Whittle and Barry Sullivan
CEO and CTO, Co-founders
AgKonect
