This start-up is merging traditional farming with modern AI

Traditional farming and modern artificial intelligence are often looked upon as the extreme opposite of each other as the former is typically dependent on age-old methods while the latter uses the most advanced and modern technology available to mankind. 

But opposites often attract each other, don't they? 

A four-year old venture based in the start-up capital of India -- Bengaluru -- is looking at marrying the two to create a platform to bring a large amount of certainty to farm produce. 

Fyllo is an agriscience platform powered by AI and Internet of Things (IoT) based patented system that analyses the precise requirements of plants on a real-time basis and basis that provides timely advice to farmers. 

Founded in 2019 by Sudhanshu Rai and Sumit Sheoran, the start-up -- registered as Agrihawk Technologies Private Limited -- has deployed over 4,000+ IoT devices – named Kairo and Nero -- across 10 states covering more than 34,000 acres and 5,000 farmers and 15+ crops. 

“From the design, look and feel of both Kairo and Nero, we wanted to break the stereotypes that anything or just any product will work for farmers. The message is that farmers deserve nothing but the best. Both the products are premium quality, desirable and affordable as well,” says Sheoran. 

The process begins with an easy to use and self-installable device at the farm that, in turn, provides the all-important analysis needed to provide the farmer with real-time insights related to irrigation, nutrients, diseases, pests, soil moisture, and weather management for each physiological stage of crop and soil on the user’s mobile phone through a multilingual app. 

“Kairo captures 12 parameters from soil, canopy and environment and can cover up to 150 acres of land and provides complete advisories while Nero captures three critical parameters from soil and provides precise irrigation, nutrient schedule as services,” says Sheoran. 

The start-up with around 40 full-time employees and 10 part-time claims that farmers have consistently received 25-50 per cent more income and saved input cost by 25 per cent using its systems while saving over 15 billion litres of water and more than two million kilos of carbon emissions even as it reduced pesticide and fertiliser usage by 30 per cent. 

More importantly, it claims to improve the farmer’s income by 25-50 per cent and the yield by 25 per cent with around 80 per cent of the produce of export quality. 

Incidentally, if the app usage analytics are anything to go by then the start-up seems to be gaining popularity. Subscription renewal has been 100 per cent while 80 per cent of the farmers purchased additional devices after one crop cycle. 

“Initially the farmers were reluctant to follow our advisories and we realised that we need to be close to the farmers. Hence, we shifted to Nashik from Bengaluru. That’s when things changed. We started working with the farmers and showed them the results and that’s when farmers started trusting Fyllo,” says Sheoran. 

In terms of financial growth, the start-up has registered a 300 per cent growth in FY23 income when compared to that of the previous fiscal. The start-up makes money by selling the devices and thereafter an annual subscription charge. 

Meanwhile, the start-up has till date raised a total of $2.2 million in a pre-series A round of funding that saw participation of investors like 100X.VC, Lead Angels, IAN, Titan Capital, Singularity Funds and Venture Catalysts among others. 

Going ahead, the start-up plans to expand its current model globally, launch a SaaS platform for B2B on the huge data that they have collected, and offer add-on products like insurance etc. 

“The plan for next 5-8 years is to reach millions of farmers across globe to provide crop specific advisories in 40+ crops. We will come up with farm specific crop insurance, a platform for agri-input companies where they can visualise the countrywide progression of disease/pests. We will soon have the largest network of weather monitoring systems in the country. The near future focus is on using this data along with other data sources to build solutions for agri industry,” says Sheoran. 

Seems that the start-up is betting big as an increasing number of farmers in India adopt technology and devices – corroborated with the rising sales of tractors, drip irrigation devices and water-soluble fertilisers among other things -- to enhance both, the quantity and quality of their produce.