The national agritech business accelerator is searching the country for eight budding entrepreneurs with embryonic agritech businesses operating in the “paddock to the plate” space, and using technologies that improve yield, efficiency and profitability.

The chosen eight will receive a cash investment of $20,000 and be placed in a five-month part-time and remotely delivered programme that will see them flown around the country for mentoring and training from world-class leaders in technology, research and business growth. The programme will culminate in an opportunity to pitch for investment to a handpicked group of potential investors, corporate partners and potential customers.

Start-ups

Sprout business strategy advisor Stu Bradbury says Sprout wants to help entrepreneurs grow their start-ups from great ideas into investment-ready, early-stage companies. “We know that many early-stage entrepreneurs find it difficult to articulate their ideas and in turn gain support from customers, stakeholders and investors. We’ve addressed this with the Sprout programme and are happy to report that our first group of eight alumni all experienced strong business growth as a result,” says Stu.

AgriTrack was one of the eight companies that participated in the 2015 programme and that pitched to a broad range of investors from Auckland to Otago. AgriTrack secured $550,000 of capital and is on track to grow sales by 80 per cent year-on-year, and has achieved a 100 per cent conversion rate from product trial to sales with Australian farmers this year.

Plan for growth

AgriTrack CEO Andrew Humphries says: “When we started out with Sprout, we had a product on the market but we didn’t have a coherent plan for growth, talent strategy, working capital or a strong sales and distribution model”.

“Those five months were the hardest I’ve worked in my life, but the support and advice has allowed us to develop all areas of our business plan and now the capital we’ve raised means we’re well-equipped to take our business to the next level.” Register to apply for the 2016/2017 Sprout programme now. See: sproutagritech.com.register. The programme commences October 6.

The specific primary production areas covered in Sprout’s definition of Agritech include: agriculture, horticulture, forestry, pipfruit, viticulture and aquaculture. Sprout is being supported and funded by a mix of public and private sector leaders in agritech and start-up investment, including Callaghan Innovation, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Massey University, Gallagher Group, NZTE, Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 fund, Enterprise Angels and Manawatu Investment Group.

The Sprout accelerator programme was designed by BCC, a Palmerston North-based business incubator. During the last two years BCC has helped establish four globally focused agritech startups, BioLumic, CalfSMART, CropX and Polybatics, which have raised in excess of $15 million in growth capital from New Zealand and overseas investors.