Agrilyst: The Operating System for Indoor Ag
Last week most of us in the U.S. came together to celebrate a holiday originally based on local agriculture. Local food is a hot topic these days and many believe indoor agriculture (along with efficient LEDs and renewable energy) will play an important role in a secure and sustainable food system.
Allison Kopf, founder and CEO of Agrilyst believes that to be the case. In September, the judges at TechCrunch Disrupt agreed and named Agrilyst the winner of their prestigious Startup Battlefield competition. The company’s core product is an enterprise software platform designed for the specific operational and management needs of indoor farmers.
We talked with Allison about how she sees Agrilyst enabling profitable, sustainable indoor agriculture. One aspect of her story that sticks out to us is how her background in the industry led to an efficient customer development process, which confirmed her thesis for the business. In a short time, she’s gone from concept to a beta product being tested with initial customers.
Why did you start Agrilyst?
Before founding Agrilyst, I worked for one of the largest urban indoor agriculture companies in the country. My role was to collect and understand data related to our operations and to make recommendations for improvement.
That was incredibly challenging for a number of reasons. Indoor farmers care about a lot of metrics and variables, like plant growth rates, labor rates and inventory levels, water and nutrient management. The list goes on and on. You have that information coming in from hardware and recorded by hand. And so you’re left with datasets that are fragmented and often incomplete. There is only so much you can do in that situation.
I started looking for software solutions that would help us collect and manage all those metrics in one place. I couldn’t find it so I started thinking there was an opportunity to build it myself.
How did you confirm that other indoor farm operations were experiencing the same challenges?
When I was thinking about building Agrilyst, I spent a lot of time reaching out to other growers in the industry to see if this was a widespread problem. I learned that it was indeed a common pain point and that others in the industry had not found a solution either. So I decided to build a platform that would help all indoor growers manage their operations.
Who are your customers and how do you plan to reach them?
Our users are indoor farm operators — indoor farm meaning an operation where the environment is enclosed and controlled. We started with customers who are within our network through our experience in the industry. Aside from direct sales, we are building a great distribution partnership network. Folks like equipment suppliers, consultants, greenhouse manufacturers, and technologists all who play a part in the design of those controlled systems.
Your first step when you’re looking to build an indoor facility is to call someone who will help you design that facility. The second step is to call the person who will piece together the equipment that make up that system.
Where Agrilyst wants to be in the marketplace is working directly with everyone who is going to be designing those solutions so we become the farm management system for every indoor farm.
How will you address customer needs across borders and food systems?
Different regions have different growing methods, systems, and needs. We’ve been learning about those needs from great growers around the world. Across the board, growers are looking for tools to help them manage their operations and to help them cut down on costs and increase yields. And that’s what we’re building at Agrilyst. To help us distribute our software in other countries, we’re working with channel partners who help their customers design and scale their operations as I mentioned earlier. Becoming a global company is important to us. We want to be the farm management system for every indoor farm in the world.
Can the data play a bigger role for the industry as a whole?
There are a couple major barriers of entry in getting into the indoor ag market as a producer. The first being the up front cost and the capital expense necessary to build a facility. The second being the information gap.
It’s really hard for a new operation to understand what crops can grow best and what the optimal conditions look like without having decades of experience growing indoors. Part of our vision is to plug the information gap and create more predictability for operational costs and give growers insight on profitability by collecting this data.
We’re not sharing direct, competitive information. We are aggregating and benchmarking industry-wide in order to help growers understand what the best crops are, what the best systems are, what the best type of operation is for their market and location. That way you can scale up in a way that is cost effective and profitable for you as an operator and as an industry.
How will Agrilyst make indoor farming more sustainable?
We have huge challenges facing the agriculture industry as a whole. We have to increase efficiency of food production by 70% by 2050 in order to meet the growing global populations’ demand for food. We have to do that in the face of climate change and diminishing resources. Agriculture will inherently have to become more efficient and sustainable, which presents a lot of opportunity for innovation.
Part of our thesis is that better data and benchmarking will be a major catalyst for innovation and sustainability. What Agrilyst is focused on is helping each individual farm, become the most efficient, most sustainable farm it can be so we can reach those global goals.
Has the TechCrunch win helped on the BD front?
TechCrunch Disrupt was a phenomenal experience. We learned how to tell our story to press, to investors, and to conference attendees. The deadline helped us build our product from idea to beta in 3 months. It’s probably one of the coolest ways to launch a company and it’s also incredibly valuable from a business development standpoint.
We didn’t expect to generate a tremendous amount of leads at Disrupt, but we did. We received a lot of partnership requests from technology companies, like sensor manufacturers, who are looking to expand into the agriculture industry and heard about us via Disrupt. And we received a lot of interest from large commercial growers because industry press picked up on the story. Because of Disrupt, we were able to reach customers and partners both in the U.S. and internationally faster than we would’ve without participating.
What do things look like in the next five to ten years?
There are a few big shifts happening in the ag industry right now. Private capital for the first time is getting very excited about ag tech. Consumers are demanding more local and sustainable food. Technology is improving and we’re seeing production being directly affected by climate change.
The market for indoor produce in the U.S. is estimated to grow to about $9B. I believe that with the industry shifts we’re seeing we’ll reach that $9B mark in 5 years. In ten years I’d like to believe there’ll be a comprehensive food system that espouses quality, efficiency, and sustainability. I hope that Agrilyst will be part of every farm in that system or at least well on its way.
SuperCollider sees Agrilyst as part of a bigger trend where value is unlocked from currently hidden resource data. Software is eating the world with the food system and resources as its next meal. We wish Allison and her team the best of luck in pursuing their vision.
