AGVOICE Technology Offered: AgVoice is a mobile voice-interaction service designed for food and agriculture professionals to capture insights on the go. By using proprietary analytics and processing of raw voice files—including captured time stamps and location data—users can improve productivity and workflow management, increase documentation accuracy and gain valuable insights to optimize the use of resources in production. AgSharks Winnings: A $250,000 convertible note at a $4 million cap, during the 2017 AgSharks Competition. The cap is the maximum price at which the note will convert. AgVoice is still in the early stages of growth and when it reaches the next round of growth, the convertible note will transform into a percentage of the company.) Company Progress Since AgSharks: • Funding : The startup closed a pre- seed round six months after AgSharks. With S2G’s help in networking with additional investors, AgVoice has expanded its network and is currently working on a seed round. • Expanding Client Base: Since the AgSharks competition, customer interest in AgVoice has increased. AgVoice has gained early adopter customers and now has 10 large customers who are all participating in paid pilots.
AgVoice CEO Bruce Rasa pitching at AgSharks 2017, winning $250K in seed funding.
Startup’s Progress Since AgSharks: • Funding: The $2 million contribution that S2G Ventures awarded to the startup during the AgSharks competition led to a $3.26 million Series A round. Just this July, the startup closed $13 million in Series B funding, bringing the company's total private equity capital to $18 million. • Expanding Client Base: In 2017, about a dozen customers were trialing Hazel’s products. Today, they are active in 14 countries, servicing more than 300 million pounds of produce this year and preventing upwards of 60 million pounds from going to waste. They also closed a final deal with Mission Produce (a WG member) and launched a formal partnership with the avocado giant earlier this year. • Technology Enhancement: The company is launching new product offerings, along with the core product pitched at AgSharks. • Expanding Employee Base: Going into the AgSharks 2017 competition, the Hazel team consisted of 14 employees; today, the company has 25 employees and plans to hire five more by the end of the year. Going into 2020, the startup expects a 10-fold increase in revenue, which will require the startup to expand their workforce to 40 team members. “There’s really a quality partnership between S2G and WG, and I believe that
they have built a community that promotes good emerging companies. You see a lot of these pitch-orientated competitions, but not a lot of them necessarily have actionable investment behind them. I think the dual system that S2G and WG have created where you get in front of customers to build customer confidence and get in front of investors to build confidence on the investment side is critical.” – Aidan Mouat, CEO and Co-Founder at Hazel Technologies, Inc.
S2G Ventures’ Audre Kapacinskas speaks with Coastline Family Farms’ Larry Cox about tech needs in farming at 2018WG Annual Meeting.
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NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2019
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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