Swiss scaleup Ecorobotix gears up for further European expansion

Mar 1, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member Highlight, Member news

Swiss scaleup Ecorobotix gears up for further European expansion

After securing CHF 13.2 million in one of Vaud’s largest funding rounds last year and ranking in the FoodTech 500, Ecorobotix is preparing to ramp up its European expansion in 2022. But as their list of international distributors grows, this dedicated B Corp continues to invest in strengthening the Swiss innovation ecosystem. 

Hello, tell us a bit about yourself. 
I’m Steve Tanner, CTO and co-founder of Ecorobotix. After growing up on a farm, I studied and worked at EPFL as research team lead in microelectronics. The idea of Ecorobotix came to me when I was thinking through how to use robotics and AI to improve agriculture’s environmental impact. 

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Knowing that we have the technology to really make a difference – to improve farmers’ livelihoods by increasing profitability, to make it easier to produce healthier food, while reducing agriculture’s environmental impact.

What do you do at Ecorobotix in just a few words?
Ecorobotix creates smart spraying solutions for ultra-localized treatments of row crops, pastures and lawns and can be used all year long. Our technology is the most precise sprayer on the market and is developed on a plant-by-plant basis.  

As Chief Technical Officer, I’m in charge of product development and technical innovation by leading the research and development team – currently a team of 16 people. We develop everything in-house, including mechanics, fluidics, electronics, and software. I’m in charge of supervising all these developments, setting up collaborations with research partners to support our innovation, and protecting our intellectual property by filing patents.

What does your typical work day look like?
I tend to have three or four meetings every day. In the morning I could be discussing strategic decisions with the management team and coordinating R&D activities with my managers. Then, as the day progresses, I might spend some time talking with specific engineers to explore technical issues and provide guidance and support.

What key milestones did you hit in 2021?
Last year, we were working with ten machines alongside clients in Switzerland. We successfully raised CHF 13.2 million in our Series C funding round in June to help us keep up with demand. The recently launched Swiss Venture Capital report revealed that this actually put us in top ten funding rounds in Vaud Canton. 

What are your plans for Ecorobotix in 2022?
We’re focussing on expanding our distribution network. We currently have official distributors in France, Holland, Czech Republic, Italy and Germany. 

The funding secured last year will allow us to accelerate the high-volume series production of our ARA plant protection spraying machine and drive our European expansion. This year, we’ll have 70 machines ready to deploy. We’re already working on a few pilot projects in Greece and are very open to discussions with new partners. 

We’re also working closely with academic partners to measure the impact of our work. A recent field test on onions in France showed that our solutions allowed for a decrease in the quantity of chemical products used, a significant reduction of residue and phytotoxicity on crops and fewer losses. These echo the promising results we found in our previous trials on beans and sugar beet.

How do you collaborate and support others in the ecosystem?
We support the wider agtech and innovation ecosystem in a number of ways. We enjoy welcoming students for internships, which contributes to the number of qualified and experienced people in the Swiss job market. We also take part in agtech and foodtech events, boosting the food sector’s visibility and highlighting the vital role of sustainability in this industry.

We’re also currently in discussion with an EPFL lab to make our autonomous field robotic platform available to researchers developing projects in digital agriculture. Our first solar-powered platform is really well suited for autonomous robot missions for field tasks, such as data scouting, phenotyping, and agronomic operations at a feasibility stage. We’d like this platform to be an open project to foster academic activity in this field.

What support could the SFNV community offer to further your work?
We’re always looking to connect with partners who are interested in setting up pilot projects. We’re specifically looking for collaborations in plant disease detection and application of fertilizers.

Tell us something we might not know about your company.
I’ll tell you two! For each crop our solutions support, we need to take 100,000 photos! Based on these images, our robots start to recognise the crop and adapt how they react automatically. 

As a team, we’re also committed to walking the talk on sustainability. In addition to being certified as a B Corp, all our 40 employees take half a day off each year to get involved in a practical environmental project. Last year we helped to maintain a dry grassland. This year we’re open to suggestions! 

Connect with Steve or find out more on the Ecorobotix website. 

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Swiss accelerators come together to strengthen Switzerland’s offer as a food innovation nation

Feb 22, 2022 | Ecosystem news, SFNV updates

Swiss accelerators come together to strengthen Switzerland’s offer as a food innovation nation

At our second meeting with Swiss accelerators and innovation facilitators, we clarified the why, what and how of our collaboration and pinned down the priority work areas to maximize our joint impact in 2022.

Earlier this month, the Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley team were joined by representatives from Mass Challenge Switzerland, Kickstart Innovation, the Founder Institute and Thought for Food to chat through how we can work together to streamline and strengthen innovation support across the Swiss food ecosystem.

Creating a Charter

To kick off the discussion, the SFNV team shared a draft Charter that summarized what we’re looking to achieve through the collaboration. This set out:

  • our overall objective to drive growth and innovation throughout Switzerland
  • some specific work areas that will enable participants to explore Switzerland’s joint offer as a food innovation nation
  • some shared values that clarify how we will work together to deliver these objectives
  • how we will work together in practice and ensure we maintain momentum throughout the year.

While all attendees had useful feedback and ideas to develop the document, everyone agreed that we should focus on collaborating to create a single national offer that showcases the wealth of support available across the Swiss ecosystem. Despite being ranked Europe’s most innovative country in the European Innovation Scoreboard last year, public perception – and the perception of the best global talent – can sometimes lag behind this reality. The group is eager to work together to change this.

Why Switzerland?

Attendees agreed that the most pressing gap is a clear and comprehensive response to the question: “Why Switzerland?”. All participants have their own replies to this question and success stories to illustrate them. But by transforming these separate messages into a single story that shows how their initiatives link into the wider ecosystem, each partner could reinforce Switzerland’s unique selling point in their work. Then, by mapping each partner’s respective offers, all group members can ensure that startups – and corporates – who want to get involved in food system innovation, always find the right door to knock on.

Participants also noted that having an honest conversation about the ecosystem’s strengths and weaknesses will  help us identify and take action on areas where improvement is needed. This could, for example, allow us to speak with a united voice to address any barriers to growth at cantonal or national level.

Collaborative communication

In addition to developing these key messages, the group was eager to create an overview of their key communication milestones for 2022 to make it easier to proactively support each other’s programmes and initiatives. The SFNV core team agreed to create this initial overview, working alongside partners’ communication contacts. We also discussed some quick-win solutions that we could get started with straight away – something that some partners have already begun testing out and is working well.

What comes next?

The SFNV team will work alongside participants to revise the Charter in line with the feedback received and develop a first draft of the Swiss food innovation nation storyline. We will then review and improve these documents at the group’s next meeting.

Do you have any ideas about how we can collaborate to strengthen the Swiss food innovation ecosystem? We’d love to hear from you.

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The FoodTech 500 2021: A jump in global funding and strong Swiss representation

Feb 17, 2022 | Ecosystem news

The FoodTech 500 2021: A jump in global funding and strong Swiss representation

The FoodTech 500, released this week, shows that 2021 was a record-breaking year for the global AgriFoodTech system. 18 Swiss companies made it into the ranking, including 6 Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley members.

The FoodTech 500

The FoodTech 500 – the Fortune 500 for AgriFoodTech – is the definitive list of global entrepreneurial talent at the intersection between food, technology and sustainability. The initiative was developed by Forward Fooding, a global collaborative platform for the food and beverage industry, to celebrate those who are shaping the future of food from farm to fork.

The ranking is compiled using their FoodTech Data Navigator’s algorithms to assess the applicant’s business size and digital footprint, combined with a sustainability score based on their contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

For the purposes of the ranking, the team defines AgriFoodTech as “the emergent sector exploring how technology can be leveraged to improve efficiency and sustainability in designing, producing, choosing, delivering & enjoying food.”

The global results

The White Paper released alongside the ranking reveals that 2021 was a record-breaking year for the global AgriFoodTech system, with $50.4B dollars raised by AgriFoodTech startups and scaleup companies. This figure represents a huge leap on the figure of EUR 17.5B ($19.8B) reported in 2020.

This year, the Forward Fooding team sifted through over 2250 applications from over 85 countries to select their top 500. Consistent with the overall improvement to the funding landscape, the 2021 finalists raised $9.6B – over double what their peers had secured in 2020 ($4.6B). The majority of finalists (57%) were working in AgTech or Next Gen Food & drinks and around 70% were at seed or Series A funding stage, findings that were consistent with the 2020 results. 46% of all listed companies identified Sustainable Development Goal 2 to be amongst the top 3 SDGs they’re contributing to as part of their work. The report also identified a slight lift in female founders (29% against 25.2% in 2020).

 AgriFoodTech innovation in Switzerland

The list included 18 Swiss companies, including six Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley members:

  • Planted Foods AG secured 51st place in the global ranking, moving up 4 places from last year’s edition. The Zurich-based biotech spin-off from ETH was founded in 2019 and is already present in five European markets with a total of over 160 employees. Planted produces delicious plant-based meat with the perfect bite. The company applies a pioneering approach, combining protein structuring with biotechnology, to design and structure proteins in any size, shape, and fibrous texture perfectly.
  • Yverdon-les-Bains-based EcoRobotix appeared in 145th place. Founded in 2014, the company develops, produces and sells innovative, solar-powered farming machines that reduce agriculture’s environmental impact, while improving farmers’ profitability.
  • Another new entry, Farmer Connect bagged 271st place in the list. Founded in 2019, the company connects coffee and chocolate lovers to the producers that fuel their habit through innovative supply chain technology.
  • Sera intelligence came in at number 341. This Zurich-based company simplifies the complexity of horticulture by using plant models and data analytics to allow for better decisions, investments and crop strategies.
  • Vivent SA made their first appearance in the list at number 431. A Swiss leader in plant electrophysiology, their groundbreaking technology PhytlSigns, dubbed the ‘FitBit of Plants’, uses tech to tap into plant signalling to make agriculture more sustainable.
  • Flavor sensory science startup, iSense, also secured a place in the ranking for the first time, in spot 456. They standardize flavor taste measurement to enable comparison and propose a software (SaaS) to accelerate flavor selection, matching, creation and sourcing.

Farmy.ch, the online marketplace for regional and organic products and yamo, producing plant-based and fresh snacks for kids, secured a spot in the Top 50 with 13th and 34th place respectively. Crowd Container (76), YASAI (125), Authena – Protect Authenticity (153), Genuine Way (197), FlavorWiki (201), KITRO (210), SwissDeCode (228), Essento Insect Food (279), Embion Technologies (305) and Lyfa  (434) also appeared in the Top 500 ranking.

About Forward Fooding
Forward Fooding is the world’s first collaborative platform for the food and beverage industry, fostering innovation via FoodTech Data Intelligence and corporate-startup collaboration. Since 2015 they’ve been acting as an ecosystem enabler to provide the necessary support and velocity to enable meaningful collaboration and partnerships between established food organizations and AgriFoodTech startup and scale-up companies. 
forwardfooding.com

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AgroSustain secures CHF 500’000 to prepare for commercial rollout

Feb 15, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member news

AgroSustain secures CHF 500’000 to prepare for commercial rollout

Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, AgroSustain, has secured a FIT Tech Growth loan, completing the startup’s CHF 4.8 Million Series A funding round and laying the foundations for imminent market launch.

Food waste: a growing issue

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that approximately one-third of global food production – worth around USD 1.66 trillion – goes to waste annually. Storage and transportation of perishable crops has become a key challenge in the food industry and results in a significant proportion of these annual losses.

AgroSustain, a Swiss startup founded in 2018, has set out to tackle this issue by developing a biological & natural farm-to-fork solution for sustainable plant protection. Their 100% natural innovative coating extends crop freshness by more than 20 days, while its biological fungicides protect a broad number of agronomically important crops – like grapes and wheat – from molds that may lead them to spoil.

The journey so far

AgroSustain has developed and certified its natural fungicides and coating and has filed four patents. The team has also signed over 15 pilot trials with some of the largest European and Swiss retailers and wholesalers, and set up its production facilities. The team behind AgroSustain is now planning to launch their first product – natural coating for extending the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables this March, in partnership with two well-established wholesalers and retailers. AgroSustain’s second product – a natural fungicide – is currently undergoing efficacy studies at the field scale.

Agrosustain produces natural coatings for fruit and vegetables

Over the past three years, AgroSustain’s team grew from two co-founders to twelve employees. The startup has received support from numerous programs – including BRIDGE, Venture Kick and Horizon2020 – EIC grant, to the tune of CHF 4,8 Million. In addition to non-dilutive funding, AgroSustain also secured over CHF 5 Million in three rounds of investments, including a FIT Tech Seed loan in 2019 that helped the company to strengthen its product development, hire top-class researchers and build its unique, highly effective natural coating.

What’s next?

The funds from this new FIT Tech Growth loan complete the startup’s CHF 4.8 Million Series A funding round closed in July 2021 and will enable AgroSustain to bootstrap the commercial rollout of its natural coating and continue work on its biological and natural fungicides. The team is also planning to hire a Head of Sales and two field technicians to strengthen their client traction and attract new customers.

AgroSustain’s CEO, Olga Dubey, said: “We’re happy to receive the FIT Growth Loan that provides financial support and gives a credibility stamp for our performance. We’re now actively looking to connect with players active in the supply chain of fresh fruits and vegetables, who are motivated to extend the shelf-life of their products using natural solutions. Please do get in touch if you’d like to collaborate.”

Find out more on AgroSustain’s website: www.agrosustain.ch 

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Nestlé Strengthens Agricultural Science Expertise with New Research Institute

Feb 9, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member news

Nestlé Strengthens Agricultural Science Expertise with New Research Institute

This week, Nestlé announced the creation of Nestlé Institute of Agricultural Sciences. Focusing on plant science, dairy livestock and agricultural systems, it will translate novel agricultural science into concrete applications and identify the most promising technologies to implement at farm level.

Translating science into concrete solutions

Transitioning towards a regenerative food system requires large-scale changes in the way agricultural raw materials are produced and sourced. To translate novel agricultural science into concrete applications and to identify the most promising agricultural technologies, Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member Nestlé announced today the creation of the Nestlé Institute of Agricultural Sciences.

This new institute will focus on the areas of plant science, dairy livestock and agricultural systems science. In close collaboration with internal and external partners, it will assess and combine science-based solutions to improve the nutritional and sensorial qualities and the environmental impact of agricultural raw materials.

Stefan Palzer, Nestlé CTO and Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley’s Vice-President, said: “Our transition towards a regenerative food system is enabled by agricultural science and new agricultural technologies. The new institute will accelerate the translation of science into concrete solutions that can be implemented at farm level, to support farmers globally in improving their environmental footprint, in reducing food and nutrient losses, and in better adapting to climate change while ensuring the quality of the raw materials they produce.” 

Nestle Regenerative Agriculture

Building on strong foundations

The institute builds on Nestlé’s existing work and expertise in agricultural science, with numerous programs already being implemented. Nestle’s plant science experts have, for example, been contributing to the company’s sustainable cocoa and coffee sourcing plans – the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and the Nescafé Plan – including scientific discoveries such as the recently announced high-yield, drought and disease resistant coffee varieties.

Nestlé experts are also working on identifying the most suitable pulses and grains to provide low carbon, plant-based alternatives to meat, seafood and dairy. This strong focus on plant science will be further strengthened and extended to additional crops. The institute will accelerate the work with external partners to contribute to reducing emissions in dairy farming, to develop regenerative agriculture practices, and to improve biodiversity and soil health. It will also explore new approaches to upcycling agricultural side streams to reduce nutrient loss and food waste along the agricultural value chain.

Isabelle Bureau-Franz, Head of Nestlé Research, said: “The work in agricultural sciences will complement our broad expertise at Nestlé Research, ranging from food safety to health science, material science and packaging. We will leverage our scientific breadth to drive holistic approaches, contributing to concrete solutions and innovation applied throughout the value chain, including in products.”

Nestle plant factory

Working across the ecosystem

The institute will work closely with academic institutions and research organizations, start-ups, industry partners and farmers to assess and develop science-based solutions and adapt them for implementation and scale-up across the company’s supply chain, while having a positive impact on the livelihoods and incomes of farmers. It will rely on new and existing collaborations, such as the research program with fellow Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member ETHZ to reduce the carbon footprint of agricultural products.

Jeroen Dijkman, Head of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, said: “At the institute we will screen a wide variety of science-based agricultural solutions and assess their potential for reducing the environmental footprint of key agricultural raw materials. Together with our research and industry partners we want to bring the most promising approaches and solutions to farmers and contribute to their transition to regenerative practices with scalable and impactful applications.“

About the institute
The institute will be part of Nestlé’s global research organization, based in state-of-the-art facilities in Lausanne, Switzerland and will be formally inaugurated later this year. It will also include the company’s plant science unit in France, as well as existing cocoa, coffee, and dairy research farms based in Ecuador, Côte d’Ivoire, Thailand and Switzerland.

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PhytlSigns by Vivent: The ‘FitBit of Plants’ using tech to tap into plant signalling

Feb 8, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member Highlight

PhytlSigns by Vivent: The ‘FitBit of Plants’ using tech to tap into plant signalling

Vivent is a Swiss leader in plant electrophysiology, cleverly using tech to turn plant intelligence into business intelligence. We caught up with Marina Martin Curran, Vivent’s Sustainability Manager, to find out more about their groundbreaking technology system PhytlSigns that’s been called the ‘FitBit of Plants’, and their recent certification as a B Corp.

Describe your company in a single sentence.
PhytlSigns is a pioneering technology system developed by our team here at Vivent which provides early warnings of a wide range of crop stressors, well before visual symptoms, enabling growers to increase yields and to choose environmentally preferable crop protection.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
We’re really proud to be playing our part in transforming the future of agriculture, delivering safe and secure food for everyone, with a reduced environmental impact. 

What projects or innovations are you and your team working on at the moment?
Our company, Vivent SA, just received a growth loan worth 500,000 CHF from the Foundation for Technological Innovation (FIT). This will allow us to develop and launch a second plant monitoring system aimed at larger fields and greenhouses. We’ll now also be looking to finalise and launch PhytlSigns Scout, a smaller, cheaper, wireless and more convenient plant monitoring system.

Vivent Team photo

Tell us about one of your open innovation success stories.
Plant researchers at Agroscope, another SFNV member, are currently using PhytlSigns to measure the responses of tomatoes and aubergines to stressors, insect attacks and agrochemical use, and to track changes of nectar production in flowering plants. We’ve been working with Agroscope for some time, thanks to Innosuisse and OFAG funding that allowed us to collaborate to identify the signals that plants produce when different stressors are applied. Thanks to machine learning we’ve been able to train algorithms for these different stressors which can then be deployed commercially to support more sustainable agriculture.

We’ve also been successful in obtaining an NTN Innobooster Award and will be working with Agroscope on potatoes in storage. This project aims to reduce the amounts of germination inhibitors that are sprayed on potatoes during the storage period.

How do you support the Swiss ecosystem beyond your core business offer?
We’re always willing to engage with other stakeholders. We’re already working with researchers from other companies to improve and hone how PhytlSigns works in practice. In addition to our collaboration with Agroscope, we’ve also worked with the schools of Applied Sciences in Fribourg and Yverdon. We’d really like to connect with other members of the Swiss ecosystem to support their work and to accelerate our own product development. We’re always open to hearing from anyone who’s interested in collaborating!

What support could the SFNV community offer to help you achieve your goals?
We are particularly eager to connect with agritech companies, vertical or indoor farm operators, greenhouse growers, producers of biostimulants and other novel crop protection. And we’re actively looking for support to enter the greenhouse market in Switzerland.

Tell us a fun fact or something we didn’t know about your company.
We recently received news that Vivent has been awarded B Corp status! To become a B Corp, we had to meet rigorous social and environmental standards – and it’s not a one-time thing. We have to apply to be recertified every three years. So you could say we’ve truly committed to a process that privileges continuous improvement and ever higher standards. But that’s something we’re glad to be able to do. We want to do business in a meaningful way and pursue purpose as well as profit. We’re also in good company, as fellow SFNV members Ecorobotix and CleanGreens, are also Swiss B Corps!

To find out more about Vivent’s work, or explore collaboration opportunities, contact Marina at marina.curran@vivent.ch. 

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