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Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

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131–140 of 205 posts

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#131

I've been working on a hardware data logger device and web software platform that monitors soil moisture and other environmental metrics that produce-growers care about – soil temperature and conductivity (which indicates salinity or fertiliser penetration), air/canopy temperature, rainfall, irrigation, humidity, solar radiation, etc. We've been working on the product for about 4-5 years (as a side project while work…

this is really cool. i'm currently in Melbourne (but from the USA) -- http://bit.ly/elasticventures-growpotbot

I posted on another thread -- but basically the innovation in this area was stifled by lack of military applications in the USA and farmers "not being real good at technology" and good ole' fashioned corruption in the academic institutions.

If you'd like this to be full time - I know a guy that manages a tycoon fortune and he might like to help you. hmu - http://elastic.ventures

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#134
post #66

Indigo Agriculture (indigoag.com) - Boston/Memphis/Remote Shameless plug for Indigo Agriculture (indigoag.com). We're expanding on a number of different fronts with the central goal of increasing farmer profitability while reducing the environmental impact of production. Here are some of the groups at Indigo that are hiring: - Marketplace: matching growers producing high quality crops with buyers who need that qualit…

Not disparaging the company whatsoever, but depending on the job you're looking for at Indigo, make sure you take a look at Glassdoor. Indigo looks impressive from many angles, yes. And while it's anecdotal at best, I say with all honesty that I have a few close friends that have interviewed there and confirm the central themes of the negative reviews.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#135

I've been working on a hardware data logger device and web software platform that monitors soil moisture and other environmental metrics that produce-growers care about – soil temperature and conductivity (which indicates salinity or fertiliser penetration), air/canopy temperature, rainfall, irrigation, humidity, solar radiation, etc. We've been working on the product for about 4-5 years (as a side project while work…

this is really cool. i'm currently in Melbourne (but from the USA) -- http://bit.ly/elasticventures-growpotbot I posted on another thread -- but basically the innovation in this area was stifled by lack of military applications in the USA and farmers "not being real good at technology" and good ole' fashioned corruption in the academic institutions. If you'd like this to be full time - I know a guy that manages a tyc…

Strangely enough I'm in LA right now. In the U.S. for another 2.5 weeks. Will ping you. Thanks for the comment.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#136
post #66

Indigo Agriculture (indigoag.com) - Boston/Memphis/Remote Shameless plug for Indigo Agriculture (indigoag.com). We're expanding on a number of different fronts with the central goal of increasing farmer profitability while reducing the environmental impact of production. Here are some of the groups at Indigo that are hiring: - Marketplace: matching growers producing high quality crops with buyers who need that qualit…

None of the jobs are explicitly remote - any heuristics for identifying which roles are remote friendly?

I work on the marketplace team—most of our software engineering roles are remote friendly, especially on the marketplace and transport teams. I recommend applying as we have a strong ratio of remote folks and can place you in teams where that’s well supported.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#137

I am the founder of Optimal: http://optimal.ag . We are a team of engineers and scientists from DeepMind, Palantir, Oxford and MIT. Our mission is to grow safer, healthier food by deploying fully autonomous greenhouses outside every city on earth. We are backed by leading deep technology funds, including Founders Fund. We believe that high-tech greenhouses will be an important part of our agricultural future, for imp…

How would deploying greenhouses be helping to fight climate change? Many greenhouses now use energy for heating. Or maybe are you talking about passive greenhouses only?

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before climate change really kicks into full gear and destroys outdoor gardens Not sure what the case will be that you can sustain yourself on your apartment tomato while outdoors is Armageddon. Nice! Good luck with your marketing strategy!

marketing strategy is key. The tech & science behind the yield optimization -- up to 6x 'overclocked photosynthesis' using aeroponics (not soil), optimized for photonic efficiency -- humans can accelerate the growth of plants substantially effectively "overlocking" nature. it's based on the Minskey/MIT media lab designs and some pieces I found in China -- a training gym for growing plants, but with a non-laboratory '…

I’d be careful before following the MIT media lab designs too carefully. Their agriculture project has been called “mostly smoke and mirrors”: https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-...

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#139
Hey I'm the lead roboticist with https://farmwise.io/

We're building autonomous devices for sustainable farming at scale; that means weeding without chemicals, reducing fertilizer utilization and building new methods for planting/harvesting.

For a roboticist this translates to building high quality odometry, actuation and navigation stacks. We have novel backend and real time systems challenges as well. I've worked on autonomous systems for several years now and have seen how effective solid software engineers are at building solutions in the robotics space.

Our company is product focused and has devices operating on farms today, feel free to reach out with any questions.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#140
[edit: I overlooked the direct call-out to Indigo in the original post, my mistake. Nevertheless, I'll leave this as perhaps its helpful to others who don't know the company.]

Indigo Agriculture - https://www.indigoag.com/

I worked for a satellite imagery start-up who was acquired by Indigo in December of 2018. I'm obviously biased, but i can genuinely say that the level of innovation taking place throughout this company - towards so many different parts of the agricultural system - has not ceased to astound me since I joined.

They've managed to capture/create/cultivate one of those unique scenarios that rarely happens in any industry: a scenario where all participants benefit. They're helping consumers gain access to healthy, responsibly-sourced food, they're helping to make it profitable for the farmer to provide these foods, and they're helping to make it beneficial to the planet to produce them.

They started as a microbial seed treatment company. By coating seeds with naturally-occurring microbial organisms, these microbes would help crops by making them more resistant to harsh conditions like drought, heat, etc. Kind of like probiotics, but for plants.

Since then, they've expanded into many different parts of the agricultural system, but perhaps their most innovative & potentially impactful contribution is their most recent: the Terraton initiative. They're helping to remove a trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere by making it financially beneficial for farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices to bring this carbon out of the air and into the soil.

I could go on, but the videos and content on their website describe their mission and their work better than I can. I'm really excited about the work we're doing there - I hope you'll think so too.

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