“Streamline your offering, find your product-market fit, and prioritise market immersions,”- CropX on finding a perfect complimentary acquisition
New Zealand’s AI-based agronomic farm management system, CropX, says streamlining your offering, product-market fit, and making the most of Callaghan Innovation’s market immersions are the key to quality acquisitions. This comes after CropX acquired prominent Australian digital irrigation solutions provider Green Brain for an undisclosed sum.
CropX combines farm data, real-time conditions, and deep agronomic knowledge to provide farms with insights and advice that lead to:
Up to 20% fertiliser savings
Up to 15% yield increase
Up to 50% water savings
Up to 20% fungicide savings
Instead of ‘acquire and fire’, CropX are inviting Green Brain’s software developers, hardware technicians, and executives in Adelaide to continue providing irrigation support tools to their customers while also expanding their offering to include nutrition monitoring, and disease control along with new hardware such as soil sensors, rain gauges, and telemetry devices which allow farms to capture and activate more data.
Green Brain had a particularly strong presence in high value, permanent crops such as grapes, avocados, and almonds, that CropX managing director, Eitan Dan says can now benefit from the agronomic data and insights offered by the CropX agronomic farm management system.
“We’re thrilled to have acquired Green Brain for the betterment of both companies. Australia is the ideal market for the CropX. Being able to visit and explore South Australia for Callaghan Innovation’s Agritech Activator market immersion last year was the catalyst in setting this up,” he says.
Meeting the right people through market immersions
“During the immersion, I started telling some Australian consultants on the bus that we were looking for partnerships and they introduced me to Green Brain. Three months after our initial conversation, I got a call and we began the official negotiation. It was very quick,” he says.
“The market immersion was so well-organised. Callaghan Innovation knows how to get the right people in the room and help agritech companies learn about the market to make this kind of thing happen.”
In the past year, CropX has been listed 8th on the globally recognised FoodTech500 list 2023. They have also signed another significant contract with Western-Australian fertiliser company who will now utilise CropX for customers using fertilisers in dryland farming.
And they’re not slowing down anytime soon. Eitan has his eye firmly on continued expansion in existing countries and beyond.
“The number one priority for us is finding another opportunity in Australia, similar to Green Brain. Being able to acquire a company with basic technology and a very stable customer base is ideal, as we know CropX technology has a lot to offer.”
Finding the right market for your offering
Eitan says their expansion strategy was led by product-market fit rather than other aspects like scale or proximity.
“So many other New Zealand-based startups fixate on New Zealand but forget it has a relatively narrow horizon. We targeted the markets where we had the biggest influence and had the largest capabilities like the USA.”
CropX Chief Sustainability Officer, Bridgit Hawkins says because agriculture is seasonal, by having market interest in both the northern and southern hemisphere, CropX has ongoing interest year-round.
Streamlining your offering
Bridgit says a key issue in the agritech industry for farmers is fragmentation.
“Farmers and growers are having to log into so many apps, there’s one for the weather and one for irrigation and so on.”
She says the key to CropX’s success in acquiring global partners has been consolidating a number of services and offering it in one space.
“Investors, partners, and farmers have been most complimentary of the streamlined nature of our services,” she begins.
“Our cut-through in-market has been offering a one-stop-shop for numerous in-field data points that are making farm management, data interpretation, and day-to-day operations for growers simple.”
Join our next Australian market immersion
Want to follow in the footsteps of CropX and make connections for potential acquisitions? Join us on our next Melbourne Hort Market Immersion - 29 May - 3 June ahead of Australia and New Zealand's largest horticulture conference and trade show - Hort Connections 2024
Secure your spot, register now: https://events.humanitix.com/melbourne-hort-market-immersion/tickets
