• Lynn Grooms lgrooms@madison.com

• September 23, 2019

Nine startup companies were chosen to participate in the 2019 SVG Ventures-Thrive Accelerator Program. Silicon Valley Global Ventures, known as SVG Ventures, is a venture capital, innovation, and investment firm. The Thrive Accelerator program invests in mentors and connects startups with investors and businesses for partnerships.

Six of the nine companies have been featured in recent editions of Agri-View. This article features the final three companies – Alesca Life, Farm X, and ProteoSense.

Alesca Life of Beijing has developed various indoor-farming systems. Its container-farming system features monitoring, automation, and climate control. It was developed for food processors and food retailers.

The company also has developed a small cabinet farm for on-site food production in restaurants and schools. The compact system is suitable for growing micro-greens and other leafy vegetables.

“Our target is that customers will see a return on their initial investment within four years,” said Stuart Oda, co-founder, and CEO of Alesca Life.

Another of the company’s indoor-farming systems is “Alesca Sprout.” Developed for hydroponic farms its sensor-based system automates irrigation and other farm electrical equipment.

The Alesca Cloud is a smartphone-based supply-chain-management system. It aggregates operational tasks, farm capacity and production data, operational inventory, environmental sensor data, and other data points.

“Indoor farming is one of many ways to produce food in a hyper-efficient and localized way,” Oda said. “Just as there are different modes of transportation for different types of travel needs, indoor farming is a mode of food production optimized for certain geographies and crop types. As indoor vertical farms become more productive and efficient they’ll be able to produce larger volumes and varieties of vegetables.”

Alesca Life’s turnkey food-production systems enable even inexperienced growers to produce vegetables. The company wants to ensure its customers have positive experiences with indoor farming so it provides troubleshooting for the mechanical and electrical aspects of its systems, Oda said.

Farm X of Mountain View, California, provides growers monitoring and analysis to improve crop productivity. Bill Jennings, chief technical officer for Farm X, discussed the company’s tiers of service in June at the Forbes AgTech Summit.

A basic service that Farm X offers involves weather monitoring. The company collects data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the California Irrigation Management Information System, IBM’s Weather Underground and other third-party sources. The company combines the data with imagery from satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles to help growers monitor crop health and performance.

The next tier of service involves the use of in-ground sensors placed every 5 acres to monitor crop health as well as irrigation performance. Farm X combines that information with its models to help growers ensure uniform distribution of irrigation water and reduce electrical costs associated with irrigation pumps.

The third tier of service is a yield-management program. Farm X forecasts crop conditions about three to four months in advance of harvest. That enables growers to improve harvest planning such as how many workers will be needed for harvest. Growers also can use the forecasts to inform their supply-chain partners about future sales, Jennings said. The company’s focus to date has been in California’s vegetable-production areas.

ProteoSense of Columbus, Ohio, has developed a portable biosensor that detects foodborne pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes. Mark Byrne, president and CEO of ProteoSense, has several years of experience working in the medical-device industry. But he saw the need for rapid detection of pathogens in food production and processing.

ProteoSense’s biosensor has been in testing at Taylor Farms of Salinas, California, a large producer of fresh-cut vegetables. The biosensor was first tested in a food-packing house where Listeria monocytogenes can live on countertops, floor drains, coolers, and other equipment.

Food producers have traditionally taken swabs of suspect areas to send samples for laboratory testing. Food producers often need to wait for three days to a week before receiving test results. The ProteoSense biosensor can be used on-site to provide immediate results, Byrne said. Using the biosensor a food producer would take swabs mixed with a buffer. The buffer is placed into the biosensor. The device then displays results and transmits them for storage in the “cloud.”

There could be several uses for the biosensor. In addition to being used to detect pathogens on vegetables the biosensor could be used to test irrigation water and ponds for E. coli, Byrne said.

“We’re working with the Pork Checkoff to learn if the biosensor could help pork producers,” Byrne said. “We want to talk with more farmers about how they could use pathogen testing.”

Visit alescalife.com or farmx.co or proteosense.com or thriveagrifood.com or www.forbes.com/series/forbes-agtech-summit -- and search for "agtech summit" -- for more information.

Lynn Grooms writes about the diversity of agriculture, including the industry’s newest ideas, research and technologies as a staff reporter for Agri-View based in Wisconsin.