Two Sacramento area AgTech startups are breathing a little easier this week after receiving a grant of $25,000 each to help them reach commercialization milestones.
Pheronym and FloraPulse, both pre-commercial AgTech (the application of technology to agriculture) firms, will use the funds to continue commercialization work which the COVID-19 health crisis had forced them to postpone or cancel.
Pheronym is a pioneer in the use of nematode pheromones to control both beneficial and plant- parasitic nematodes, or microscopic round worms, that can dramatically affect plant health. The $25,000 grant allows Pheronym to hire a technician to help prepare for the re-start of field trials for their first product as well as to start laboratory and greenhouse testing on a second line of new pheromone-based products.
FloraPulse’s patented microsensors help fruit and nut growers achieve better yield and quality while using less water. The $25,000 allows FloraPulse to hire a manufacturing technician to complete the assembly of their initial production units, as well as to allow a software developer to complete a cloud- based user interface.
“This award from Agstart allows us to hire a technician to complete our R&D efforts so we can move to trial and commercialization,” said Dr. Fatma Kaplan, CEO of Pheronym.
FloraPulse Founder and CEO Michael Santiago said, “AgStart helped us find funding to get through these difficult times, and with their help we are back on track to deliver our breakthrough product to growers across the United States to help them grow more food with fewer resources. Many thanks to the AgStart team!”
The firms were selected by the Woodland-based Ag-&-Food-Tech startup incubator AgStart to receive an Entrepreneur Support Grant through a competitive process open to members of the incubator. The Entrepreneur Support funds were made possible through a generous grant from the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) Strategic Award Program, which earlier this week announced that it had awarded $900,000 in total funds this year to help startups stay the course on the path to commercialization.
John Selep, Board Director and President of the AgTech Innovation Alliance, the non-profit parent of the AgStart program said, “We are pleased to bring the generosity of the Wells Fargo IN2 Ecosystem to agrifood innovators in our California region. Early-stage startups commercializing innovations that represent the future of sustainable California agriculture are at a fragile stage, and the COVID-19 situation has disrupted supply chains, access to resources, and customer development activities for these startups as much as it has impacted more-established firms. For startups, though, they have much less of a financial cushion to fall back on, and a lost season for an AgTech startup represents a setback of a full year in their commercialization activities. We hope that this focused incremental funding will help these two companies achieve success that the COVID-19 crisis would otherwise have prevented.”
AgTech Innovation Alliance is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that provides support for the Sacramento region’s AgStart program. The AgStart program has been active in the Sacramento region for eight years, since 2012, and during that period has supported over 200 individual ag-&-food tech startups through its offering of education, mentorship and connections for entrepreneurs and their companies. AgStart is a participant in the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) ecosystem, and shares the benefits of the IN2 program with its AgStart member companies. More information about AgStart can be found at www.agstart.org.
For additional information, please contact Leanna Sweha, AgStart Program Director at leanna@agstart.org
Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash
