AI-powered crop analysis platform Inarix announced that a €3.1M seed round made up of the venture funds Ankaa ventures, Label Investment, Newfund, Alliance for impact and Resiliance, as well as Francis Nappez, CEO of Hectar will fund scaling their technological platform. This will allow the inclusion of new crops, doubling their crop analysis abilities, growing the team, and expansion into new markets, including the U.S.
The agriculture industry is faced with the task to feed a population growing towards 8 billion while dealing with many other challenges such as a pandemic, supply chain issues, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, extreme weather and more. These obstacles have made it even more critical for producers to be able to get the most out of their crops.
Inarix was created in 2018 by Pierre Chapelle in Paris and allows users to use their smartphone to take photographs of crops and upload them to get real-time crop qualification results. These results can be used to determine the value of the crop. The artificial intelligence does the crop analysis and provides a multicriteria measurement solution.
“Essentially, what we are doing is transforming your smartphone into a pocket laboratory,” said Pierre Chapelle, Inarix founder and CEO. “The feedback that we’ve gotten from our current customers shows that being able to get these types of results instantaneously, on-the-go, and without having to use large and complex machinery has been a gamechanger for them, so we’re excited to further build out the technology to make it more widely available to all agriculture players.”
Inarix currently works with producers in the French cereal industry and allows them to analyze and determine the quality of their two main crops, barley and soft wheat. The funding will help to continue developing the technology and extend the crops to include corn, soybeans, and coffee within the next 6 to 12 months. This crop expansion is happening while Inarix integrates into U.S. markets.
“We believe Inarix has the potential to become the global reference in the billion dollar cereal quality control market, completely transforming the way the industry currently operates and disrupting the space,” said Alexandre Pierron-Darbonne from Label.
Inarix has been very successful in France where they have over 400 users.
“Inarix is disrupting a sector as critical as crop and agricultural products analysis thanks to its AI-based technology,” said Jonathan Cohen-Sabban from Ankaa Ventures. “The easy scalability of its solution allows all the players along the value chain, from farmers to end-clients, to reduce waste and guarantee the overall quality of agricultural products. We are proud to accompany the company in its ambition to improve food security and sustainability.”
For more information: Inarix.com
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