AgTech Seeds| Rocketseeder

The AgTech Seeds program is ideally suited to people at the start of their innovation journey.

The program provides fledgling founders with a supportive environment in which to partner with researchers to test their ideas, upskill quickly, fail fast, develop an MVP and launch a sustainable enterprise.

Rocket Seeder's AgTech Seeds program is suitable for the following groups of people:

Aspiring Victorian AgTech entrepreneurs
Innovative researchers and research teams at Victorian universities and research organisations
Farmers and producers with a great idea, looking to scale this in Australia and beyond!

This program will help you build a network with others who share your passion and ambition - to build a team and launch a company to solve pressing issues in the agriculture sector.

Harvest Stack

To become a food technology marketplace, connecting producers and customers through a digitally supported & collaborative ecosystem; creating a food system that heals the world.

Reveg-IQ

James Malcher is developing the Riparian Quantification Model into an all-in-one revegetation tool. This tool will connect revegetation contractors and local nurseries with landholders interested in revegetation through a competitive tender system. Additionally, he plans to connect revegetated farms with carbon/organic certification groups and research groups for long-term monitoring, backed by science to enable the greatest benefit for revegetating at a cost acceptable to the landholder.

Mycelium Futures

Mycelium Futures aims to develop three key strands of the business/social enterprise, including scaling up a small mushroom farm operation, a fungi in schools program, and developing plastic alternative products made from mycelium.

Data Biome

Data Biome is based on methane emissions data analysis done when working for Agriculture Victoria Research. Keith Savin is developing a probiotic for cows that will reduce their methane output by slightly altering their digestion metabolism, utilising bacterial species naturally found in the rumen of cows. Initially, the customers will be dairy farmers wanting to reduce their on-farm greenhouse gas emissions.

Spawn

Farmer concerns about data misuse are a major obstacle to digitising agriculture. Spawn is developing a secure, independent data network so farmers and others can share data securely without risk of misuse or replication. Third parties can deploy apps or d-apps on the network to verify, query, or analyse data to support traceability, ESG reporting, and other use cases.

TreeCoin Assets

Treecoin has created a system to measure carbon drawdown from trees and monetize the growers, while issuing carbon tokens for corporations who need them.

Drone Hand

Drone Hand has developed the first commercially available, user-friendly, AI-driven, automated flight-app for livestock monitoring. It is designed to work with off-the-shelf drones all the way up to long-distance enterprise drones agnostic of brand. The app is integrable with "Drone-in-a-Box" remote stations, allowing coverage of small to very large farms.

PEAK Pasture & Livestock

PEAK Pasture & Livestock is developing an online program to help livestock producers plan their annual activities (e.g. agronomy, animal health, water, fencing). Once the required products are entered, the program automatically calculates their total required products and links this information directly to their preferred retailer.

HydroPrime Seeds

Dr. Nicola Thomas is exploring the commercial opportunity of mitigating climate variability by soaking grain seeds in fertiliser prior to planting to increase crop germination rates, yield, and profits.

Ninth Path Mushrooms

Ninth Path Mushrooms grow mushrooms and develop value added products with them and leverage mushroom cultivation waste to produce quality compost as a basis for a product (high quality/bespoke compost) or service (soil regeneration).

Outbreak Safe

OutbreakSafe is a platform able to forecast outbreaks and provide farmers with actionable data.

Herb Connect

Herb Connect is a marketplace to connect growers and users of medicinal herbs. Support, education and advocacy for growers = high quality equitable products for consumers.

Harvest Qual

Cass and Kemperly have developed a farm sensor technology and algorithms that measure grain quality traits (grain value) on the fly.

Sunrice

Mark has developed an instrument designed and built to measure physical quality traits of seeds and grains. The instrument is currently patent pending and has been developed for rice seeds, but can be easily adapted for other grains.

There is a general lack of computer-vision based instruments to measure physical grain quality traits. The instrument would also potentially find a niche for global rice and grain handlers and traders.

Grain Quality Sensors - DEECA 1

Agriculture customers need solutions to specific problems (say crop growth or disease resistance). A perfectly curated digital agriculture solution involves sensors to measure different crop parameters to help producers make informed decisions. This technology will make the system simpler for every farmer to use.

Digital agriculture technologies include a combination of hardware and software components to make our agricultural systems more productive and resilient to climate change, disease and pest tolerant, high yielding, efficient in managing resources.

Industrial Hemp

Penny is supporting the emerging industrial hemp industry through research and development. This is an emerging industry so there is a lot to learn about growing the crop, traits for end use and target markets.

Buzz Certified

Buzz Certified aims to bolster Native Bee populations by creating an umbrella body dedicated to the preservation of endangered, threatened and protected Australian animals. Initially, it will provide certification to Australian commercial Beekeepers for committing to keeping Native Bees alongside existing European Honey Bees. This will increase awareness about Native Australian Bees and allow consumers to buy with transparency to support native wildlife. It will additionally allow the Australian agriculture industry to be future-proofed against any unforeseen natural disasters and/or intrusive pests which threaten our ability to pollinate crops and provide food for the nation.

Purplegrain

Purplegrain is an online marketplace which allows users to list, book, and schedule their contract agricultural services. It is currently a web-based browser platform, but has been built to enable easy transition to an app environment. Current service categories include harvesting, seeding, spreading, mulching, hay & silage. As more users are added to the platform the categories will inevitably grow. The current services are just a selection of what is currently in demand in regional Victoria.

The focus for purplegrain is to become Australia’s premier online listing and searching tool for contract agricultural services. This means becoming the go-to online marketplace for agricultural contractors and farm owners across Australia to connect and share their services.

ZeroTag

ZeroTag envision a world where eating food feeds the planet. Their mission is to save food from landfill by avoiding packaging waste. This is done with an interactive, dishwasher-safe sticker that can transform any container into smart packaging. ZeroTags are smart, playful labels for reusable packaging. When packaging is refilled, its identity needs to be updated. When this is done digitally, food can be tracked, enabling a seamless app that can help users buy smarter and avoid wasting food and money.
ZeroTag can monetise this by charging brands access to valuable consumer insights with a non-linear subscription model. The interaction between users, groceries, smart packaging, and the pantry app allow for unique digital experiences that strengthen brands’ relationships with users and their peers. ZeroTag can also charge retailers every time the identity of smart packaging is updated because of the operational cost savings and efficiencies in their business.

ZeroTag is currently running a pilot with partner retailers and Sustainability Victoria.

La Foundary

La Foundary are pioneering the cultivation of sustainable biomaterials for a greener future, by collecting and utilising industrial and agricultural waste from businesses as substrates for inoculating our fungal strain. The current primary focus is on developing mycelium-based materials. Within a few weeks, the mycelium network grows and solidifies, resulting in a strong, insulating and protective mycelium composite material.

Harnessing the power of bio-engineering, they are exploring ways to programme our product end-life cycle to accelerate the degradation of itself and other waste surrounding it, thereby initiating mycoremediation when the product is discarded into waste. Other than easing the sustainable waste disposal responsibility of our product end-users, this unique characteristic would remediate the landfill and promote the growth of the ecosystem.

Growing Farmers

A D2C subscription service delivering seedlings direct to door empowering time and information poor people to engage in growing food at home. By empowering these people to grow, our hypothesis is that it will create a ripple effect of more home gardeners, more community gardeners, and consumers who place value on the way food is grown. It will create local jobs in community gardens, by utilising existing growing tunnel capacity to create growing hubs.

JRX Aerial Services

Aerial spraying, spreading, crop surveying using RPAs

Harveston

Harveston is developing a process and certain components that will revolutionise the harvesting and storage of almonds globally. Our product will allow growers to harvest directly into a storage pod and, using controlled air flows, dry and store their product (in husk almond) until they are able to send it for processing. With developments in harvesting technology their product would store processed products (in shell almond) for drying and conditioning directly off the harvester.

FARMap

Mapping, paddock, and livestock management app

Alternate Energy Innovations (AEI)

AEI is looking to develop intelligent and automated energy solutions that give farmers / irrigators control of their costs, time and resources, while simultaneously creating a more sustainable energy grid.

LaunchVic AgTech grant recipient

Fifth Harvest

Fifth Harvest grows food in inner cities areas by deploying tech-driven, hyper-local, commercial-scale vertical farms, helping our food system reach net zero by 2035. Fifth Harvest is building Australia’s largest network of vertical, urban farms to deliver hyper-local produce to restaurant groups, wholesalers and retailers that tastes better, lasts longer and is packaged sustainably.

Viti-X

Viti-X is a marketplace connecting grape growers with winemakers. They want to be the central place to source and purchase fruit for the production of wine, whilst providing fair equitable contracts that support all parties involved.

ST Genetics Australia

The system is a unique software which displays in-depth herd data, simplified for ease of use and ultimately identifies potential genetic gain. By producing an extensive data analysis of each individual cow's performance and benchmarked against the farms actual milk revenue, it ranks the herd using a financial custom index that incorporates all the factors that affect farm profitability.

urth.io

Soil carbon and biodiversity trading and validation platform.

Matt Dunstan

Matthew is developing a direct-to-restaurant and wholesale edible greens and flowers business. He envisages future development of a turnkey high quality solution that is visually appealing and can be placed in a restaurant/shop, reducing food miles and packaging waste.

Angus McKenzie-McHarg

Angus is looking to start an agricultural drone service that maps out farmland to identify weeds, pest infestation and poor performing plant growth areas.

Justin Morrissy

Justin wants to investigate the idea of turning wastewater into an organic nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser using algal phycology.

E Hydroponic

E-Hydroponic combines proven vertical hydroponic technology with intelligent growth algorithms and IoT sensors to automatically balance light, water and nutrient content and set new standards for fully controlled agriculture.

Indoor Harvest

James wants to revolutionize the indoor farming industry. He is developing an integrated hydroponic indoor smart garden system that will allow anyone to grow a vast variety of leafy greens, herbs, vegetables and flowers in the comfort of their own home.

The smart garden system will be direct to consumers, but it can also be marketed to businesses and government.
Four elements that guide his every decision are ease of use, luxury design, innovative research and affordable pricing.

Agriculture Victoria

Garry leads the GRDC national pulse breeding program, developing niche field pea and lentil varieties to supply the high growth plant based protein market.

Tim Leeson

Tim is developing a platform that creates wildlife corridors on private land to offset your carbon footprint.

Their visually-driven platform provides clarity on the impact of your investment.

Feast and Faucet Farm

FFF aims to incorporate passive solar greenhouses to extend the growing season while also implementing a closed loop protective farming system that reduces water usage.

Fran is motivated by “health over wealth”, which is why she focuses on producing diversity to sustain her family and regional community.

Connect Farming

Connect Farming is a customisable farm management platform for farmers to access their information.

Farmers will be able to make better informed decisions, at a glance.

AirAgri

AirAgri is Australia's first open AgTech platform which allows farmers of all types to start their journey towards the digital future.

It is focused on delivering peace of mind and safety first, before allowing customers to underpin their operation through overall farm management.

LaunchVic AgTech grant recipient

Webinar series

AgTech Seeds Webinar Series

Are you curious to find out what it takes to build and launch innovative products in the agriculture and food sector? Every startup founder has their own origin story and battle scars to accompany their growth.

Join us online for the AgTech Seeds webinar series and hear from leading start-up founders and their researchers!

Webinar with

Prof. Ruth Nettle

James Diamond

Prof. David Hughes

In this webinar, Professor Nettle will introduce you to a way of thinking about the diversity of your farmer customers and applying segmentation to plan a marketing or service strategy to engage with farmers ‘where they are at’.

Watch here

In this webinar, you will hear how James Diamond from Air Agri, one of our most recent alumni, talk about his founder journey and how a pre-accelerator like AgTech Seeds helped him on his journey.

Watch here

In this webinar, you will hear Professor Hughes, shed light on current consumer trends driving the global food sector in developed countries, and how this can inform agtech innovation.

Watch here

Fireside chat with

Emma Weston

In this fireside chat, you hear from Emma Weston, co-founder of AgriDigital, share her firsthand experience on what has enabled AgriDigital's success to date, as well as reflections on how this success could have been enhanced and accelerated by access to research in Australia's universities.

Watch here

Fireside chat with

Jordy Kay &
Eddie Attenborough

In this fireside chat, you will hear how Jordy Kay, co-founder of Great Wrap, came to work with Eddie Attenborough, a chemical engineer from Monash University, to develop the proprietary technology that forms the basis of Australia's only compostable cling wrap using food waste diverted from landfill.

Watch here

Fireside chat with

Phoebe Gardner
& Alex Arnold

In this fireside chat, you will hear from the co-founder's of Bardee, Phoebe Gardner (and architect) and Alex Arnold (a geneticist and cherry farmer), about how the came together to create and rapidly scale a circular food system with insects!

Watch here

Fireside chat with

David Lyall

In this fireside chat, you get the opportunity to hear David Lyall, co-founder of Bee Innovative, share his firsthand experience on what has enabled him success to date, as well as reflections on what he would do differently next time to accelerate the launch and growth of the company.

Watch here

AgTech Seeds Case Studies

Case Study

E-Hydroponics

Among the first AgTech Seeds cohort were trio Adam Wang, Ke Ma and Jeff Peng who are developing vertical hydroponic technology with intelligent growth algorithms and IoT sensors to set new standards for fully controlled agriculture.

Read here

Case Study

AirAgri

Third-generation cattle and sheep producers James and Paul Diamond were part of Rocket Seeder’s first AgTech Seeds program which ran from July to October 2022.

Read here

Case Study

AEI

‘AEI SmartBox’ technology operates behind a farmer’s energy meter to intelligently integrate irrigation operations with energy cost parameters.

Read here

Case Study

Harveston

Innovation: Developing technologies to reduce post harvest losses in grains, nuts and seeds using ambient air in an enclosed environment to manage temperature and particularly moisture content.

Read here

Case Study

PEAK Pasture & Livestock

Damian Pendergast, a Rural Supplier and Nicole Frost, an Agricultural Advisor have a combined 52 years’ experience working in the agriculture industry.

Read here

What is AgTech? (in the context of this program)

AgTech uses digital technology to provide the agricultural industry with the tools, data and knowledge to make more informed and timely on-farm decisions and improve productivity and sustainability.

Areas of application may include plant or animal science, crop protection & Input management, precision agriculture, indoor agriculture, sensors & smart farm equipment, imagery, animal technologies, processing & packaging, supply chain and hardware.

Source: AgFunder

AgTech Seeds Webinar Series

AgTech Seeds Case Studies

What is AgTech? (in the context of this program)

Enquire

Contact

info@rocketseeder.com

Melbourne Connect
Level 2, 700 Swanston Street
Carlton VIC 3053
Australia

ABN: 46 617 660 634

Keep Updated

AgTech Seeds Webinar Series

AgTech Seeds Case Studies

What is AgTech? (in the context of this program)

Enquire

Contact

info@rocketseeder.com Melbourne Connect Level 2, 700 Swanston Street Carlton VIC 3053 Australia ABN: 46 617 660 634

Keep Updated

info@rocketseeder.com

Melbourne Connect
Level 2, 700 Swanston Street
Carlton VIC 3053
Australia

ABN: 46 617 660 634