Every year, News’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and from them, the top 20 compete on the big stage for the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups blew us away, too, in their respective categories and in their own pitch competition.
Here is the full list of the agtech and food tech Startup Battlefield 200 selectees, along with a note on why they landed in the competition.
ÄIO
What it does: Äio has developed a method to produce edible fat from agricultural waste.
Why it’s noteworthy: Äio has developed a strain of yeast that turns abundant agricultural waste like sawdust into a fat suitable for food and cosmetics.
Aquawise
What it does: Aquawise provides AI-powered water-quality monitoring for shrimp and fish farms using satellite imagery.
Why it’s noteworthy: The startup eliminates the need for expensive sensors while offering real-time insights and predictive analytics.
Clave
What it does: Clave offers AI agents that help fast-food restaurant franchises better interact with their data.
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Why it’s noteworthy: Clave analyzes historical and real-time store data to help franchise restaurants quickly develop promotions that increase sales.
CredoSense
What it does: CredoSense offers an AI-powered portable plant diagnostic system that measures crop health.
Why it’s noteworthy: Crop-health diagnostics are trapped in silos but CredoSense handles a broad spectrum of crop diagnosis tech and data in one small, low-power device.
Forte Biotech
What it does: Forte Biotech has created a patented technology to test for illnesses among prawns in fish farms.
Why it’s noteworthy: Developed in partnership with the National University of Singapore (NUS), this tech helps shrimp farmers quickly diagnose common diseases without the need to hire expert help.
Genesis
What it does: Genesis offers a business intelligence platform for soil data that helps agricultural businesses make better, regenerative decisions about their land assets and crops.
Why it’s noteworthy: Genesis says it has collected one of the most comprehensive databases on raw materials that augments soil analysis to increase yields through regenerative practices.
Greeny Solutions
What it does: Greeny Solutions offers AI-powered software and IoT tools for indoor commercial farming.
Why it’s noteworthy: Greeny’s tech promises to automate nutrient dosing, climate control, and disease monitoring to increase yields.
Instacrops
What it does: Instacrops uses AI, IoT sensors, and satellite imagery to monitor and optimize farming fields.
Why it’s noteworthy: Y Combinator grad Instacrops uses hardware sensors and AI agents to help farms respond to crop health indications — irrigation, fertilization, etc. — in real time, boosting yields and reducing water usage.
Kadeya
What it does: Kadeya operates beverage vending stations for offices that use reusable bottles, which can be returned and are then cleaned and reused.
Why it’s noteworthy: This startup eliminates single-use plastic bottles (or cans) in the workplace, while also providing and cleaning the bottle, thereby eliminating the need for companies to buy beverages in plastic bottles to begin with.
MUI-Robotics
What it does: MUI-Robotics develops AI scent detection for robots.
Why it’s noteworthy: MUI-Robotics is digitizing smell, which not only paves the way for multisensory robotics but also has commercial scent/odor-detection applications in food, chemical, medical, and environmental applications.
Shin Starr Robotics
What it does: Shin Starr Robotics builds robotics that automate food preparation for meal delivery.
Why it’s noteworthy: The autonomous kitchens cook meals in a truck, driven by a human, while en route to a delivery destination. The idea is to deliver restaurant-quality Korean BBQ timed to arrival.
Tensorfield Agriculture
What it does: Tensorfield uses AI-powered robotics to identify and kill weeds without pesticides in densely packed crop beds like carrots, spinach, and lettuce without disturbing the crop or its soil.
Why it’s noteworthy: It can identify weeds when they just sprout and injects them with superheated vegetable oil instead of herbicides.
Unibaio
What it does: Unibaio develops biodegradable polymers that deliver agrochemicals more efficiently.
Why it’s noteworthy: The microparticles are a natural polymer derived from shrimp waste and are suitable for over 35 crops.
Verley
What it does: Verley manufactures bioidentical dairy proteins using a precision fermentation technology.
Why it’s noteworthy: Verley helps maintain the supply of dairy protein products while minimizing the environmental impact of dairy farming.
