An agtech startup from Kansas, USA has been announced as the winner of the World Agri-Tech 2018 Pitch Day, which this year partnered with acceleration fund Radicle Growth to create The Radicle Challenge, an unprecedented $250,000 investment opportunity for the winner.
More than 150 startups from around the world applied for the competition, leading to a rigorous selection process to determine the eight finalists for the Pitch Day on March 19: BeeHero (Israel), EggXYt (Israel), HerdDogg (USA), RootWave (UK), Sollum (Canada), Tortuga AgTech (USA), TradeLanes (USA) and Vence Corp (USA).
TradeLanes was announced as the winner in front of the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit audience of over 900 international agribusiness leaders, investors and agtech entrepreneurs, on Day 1 of the major summit.
TradeLanes is a digital trade room that automatically generates global trade documents for physical commodities. The platform creates a single source of truth for every shipment, enabling seamless handoffs of all trade documents with greater efficiency, accuracy and cost-savings.
Kirk Haney, CEO and Managing Partner of Radicle Growth, was joined by a judging panel of investors: Arama Kukutai, Co-Founder and Partner of Finistere Ventures, Geoff Kneen, R&D Licensing and New Ventures Manager (North America) for Bayer, Dan Cosgrove, VP Business Development for DuPont Pioneer and Kiersten Stead, Investment Director for Monsanto Growth Ventures.
Commenting on the winner, Kirk Haney, CEO of Radicle Growth said: “We’re delighted to be working with TradeLanes and to move their exciting solution forward with our $250,000 investment backing. It was a really tough competition too, the level of technology innovation that has been showcased throughout this process has been exceptional.”
Vijay Harrell, CEO for the winning company TradeLanes said, “Winning the World Agri-Tech Pitch Day is a huge honor. It’s industry recognition that we have put together the right team to solve an important problem in agricultural global trade. The significant investment from Radicle Growth will enable us to take our business to the next level, with more resources to solve more problems for our customers.”
Jennie Moss, Founder & MD of World Agri-Tech organizer, Rethink Events concluded: “Technology innovation is the lifeblood of our events”, said Jennie Moss, Founder & MD of World Agri-Tech organizer Rethink Events. “We are delighted to give the stage to some of the most exciting early agtech entrepreneurs from around the world as they present their breakthrough technologies to our biggest ever gathering of global agribusiness leaders and investors, offering them significant opportunities for investment to scale their operations.”
For more information on all the World Agri-Tech Pitch Day finalists and the summit itself please visit: https://worldagritechusa.com/pitch-day-radicle-challenge-finalists/
