A Sydney startup using artificial intelligence (AI) to forecast crop production for farmers has raised more than $1 million.
The round for Octopusbot was backed by Folklore Ventures and No Brand.
The six-year-old grain forecasting platform uses AI to analyse historical yield data, satellite imagery, weather records and commodity market information to forecast crop production, supply risks and price direction, for an average 95%+ data accuracy, up to 7 months ahead of trade and official estimates.
Growers, buyers, traders, food producers, fertiliser and crop protection companies along the grain commodity supply chain can make more accurate commercial and financial decisions using the platform. It now has more than 100 customers globally and has partnered with agricultural services company Elders for data analysis and insight.
The funds will be used to scale the tech, strengthen its global market intelligence network, and expand the forecasting models across new commodities and regions.
Technical engineers Carolina Ferreira and Rodrigo Cortes founded Octopusbot in 2020. She was inspired by her grandfather, a corn farmer, and has a background in cyber security and electrical engineering. Cortes has procurement and supply-chain treasury experience at the likes of PepsiCo, Kirin and Heineken.
Ferreira said that commodity markets have always been volatile, but the level of uncertainty facing agriculture is increasing.
“Octopusbot aims to give farmers and agribusinesses earlier, more objective information so they can make decisions with confidence rather than reacting after the market has already moved,” she said.
The startup plans to expand into other commodities, including sugar, cotton and nuts, where production and price volatility create major risks for the agriculture supply chain. It now covers more than a million hectares in Australia, with its market intelligence product expanding in the North and South Americas, Europe and Black Sea regions.
Folklore’s managing partner Alister Coleman said many agricultural decisions are still made with incomplete or delayed information
“The Octopusbot forecasting platform has more than 10,000 AI models processing millions of complex data points daily to quantify risk, measure probability and surface gains,” he said.
“This leads to better decision making for customers, and more predictable outcomes in markets that have historically been driven by historical data and sentiment.”