Three years after its launch, Source.ag, the leading provider of AI solutions for fruit and vegetable growers, has achieved a major milestone in company history. By partnering with more than 200 greenhouses globally – covering more than 1250 hectares – the Netherlands-based company now empowers growers who produce fresh tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers for more than 30 million consumers.
Its AI solutions have the capability to simulate plant behaviour for defining and implementing optimal cultivation strategies, taking into account millions of data points on climate, biology, and resources. By enabling more growers to operate more facilities more efficiently through pioneering tech, Source.ag is making greenhouse agriculture accessible, profitable and globally scalable, and helping to provide nutritious food to more people, using fewer resources. Source.ag is currently already working with leading growers around the world including Agro Care and C. Zwinkels.
Focusing on the largest global fresh vegetable segments such as tomatoes and peppers, greenhouse agriculture is a proven solution to sustainable, local, and climate-resilient food production: it produces up to 15 times higher yields without the need for arable land and uses up to 20 times less water versus traditional farming methods.
Source.ago CEO and co-founder Rien Kamman will take to the Growth Summit track stage at Web Summit on the 16th of November to discuss how the company is cracking plant biology with AI, as well as its hypergrowth success in reaching such a large greenhouse grower base in only three years.
Kamman says: “The worldwide demand for greenhouse agriculture is on the rise, yet its expansion faces obstacles due to a lack of skilled growers and unprecedented economic and climate-related challenges. Since our founding three years ago we have been on a mission to empower growers with AI software to successfully start, run, and grow their farming businesses. The result is that growers are increasing access to sufficient fruit and vegetables for everyone, in a climate resilient and resource efficient way. We are thrilled that by partnering with more than 200 greenhouses globally we now empower the production of fresh vegetables for more than 30 million consumers. ‘’
Source.ag recently completed its Series A financing of $27M, bringing the total funding to $39M and the company is using the funds to bring further ground breaking products to market for growers globally. “Source Cultivate” is able to simulate plant biology and predict expected resource usage and yield for all weeks of the season. It will also be tailored to specific cultivars, allowing growers to make even better decisions to maximise their business results and crop yields.
A second product slated for release is Source Control, which enriches growers’ cultivation strategy by autonomously creating and executing an irrigation strategy by combining AI and weather forecasts with actual plant development data. Growers’ preferences for a particular cultivation method are taken into account by flexible implementation of the underlying models. A pilot that was conducted in the past 6 months in partnership with Rainbow Growers – focused on dry-down strategy without grower intervention – was marked with higher than average accuracy.