Oct 17, 2019

PMA Fresh announces finalists for agriculture startup awards

Produce Marketing Association and SVG Ventures announce the startup finalists with innovative solutions for the produce and floral industries to pitch live on stage at the THRIVE Fresh Summit Challenge.

The pitch presentation will take place at the Fresh Summit Forum for the Future session took place at the Anaheim Convention Center Oct. 17.

The four companies have been selected from a pool of over 100 applicants to provide technological advancements for critical topic areas including food waste reduction, food safety, sustainability, and digital solutions. The winner will take away $100,000 in investment from SVG Ventures including a coveted spot on the THRIVE VI Accelerator Program.

The selected finalists for the 2019 THRIVE Fresh Summit Challenge:

Space AG has developed a farm management platform for high-value crops that integrates data from drones and satellites with ground-based sensors and other data to help farmers anticipate vegetation and irrigation problems, and to improve yield monitoring and forecasting.

ProteoSense is commercializing a solid-state biosensor technology for food safety testing, RapidScan, a high-sensitivity, field-portable system to detect foodborne pathogens without incubation and reducing test time from days to minutes.

SolGro has created a patented greenhouse canopy system that embeds advanced nanomaterials into greenhouse glazing, to convert wasted natural light into the spectrum of usable light for increased plant photosynthesis, to help decrease time to harvest, increase yields, and improve produce quality.

Intello Labs is leveraging artificial intelligence to build a platform for grading and quality monitoring of agricultural commodities, using a photo of the commodity to generate instantaneous quality metrics.

Each startup will present their pitch in front of the live audience and four judges including ABC Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec; Ted Taylor, head of new ventures and business development at Taylor Farms; Jennifer Maloney, food stakeholder manager at Bayer; and John Hartnett, CEO at SVG Ventures THRIVE. The THRIVE Fresh Summit Challenge will be hosted by Vonnie Estes, vice president of technology at PMA and Jonathan Hua, THRIVE AgriFood Accelerator Manager at SVG Ventures.

The THRIVE Fresh Summit Challenge winner will be announced, live, at the conclusion of the Forum for the Future session.

The finalist companies will also be staging a shorter presentation again live at the PMA Expo on Friday from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. Join us for an opportunity to meet and greet with the SVG Ventures, THIRVE Fresh Summit Challenge winner, finalist startups, and industry leaders.

SVG Ventures-THRIVE is the leading AgriFood innovation ecosystem, comprised of top agriculture, food and technology corporations, universities and investors. With a community of over 2,000 startups from 82 countries, the THRIVE platform invests, accelerates and creates unparalleled access for entrepreneurs to scale globally to solve the biggest challenges facing the food and agriculture industries. AgFunder recognizes SVG Ventures-THRIVE as the “Most Valuable AgriFood Platform in the World.”

THRIVE was launched in 2014 by Silicon Valley Global Ventures (SVG Ventures), a venture, innovation, and investment firm based in Silicon Valley, CA. For more information, please visit THRIVE.