Proveye, a UCD spin-out company in remote sensing image analysis for agriculture, has secured €1m in seed funding from Inspire Investments, the private investment arm of Waystone, and Enterprise Ireland.
The firm has developed an intelligent enterprise Saas platform that combines image processing for multiple remote sensing sources with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The platform used is by agricultural advisors, fertiliser and pesticide suppliers and food processors to provide fast and accurate information about productivity and sustainability on agricultural land to their farmer customers.
NovaUCD-headquartered Proveye makes it possible to significantly increase the accuracy and value of information from earth observation data across a wide array of remote sensing sources, including satellites, drones, and ground-based sensors.
Selected images are enhanced and compiled into a single view, correcting for weather conditions, sunlight, and a range of other factors that usually make it difficult to isolate clear information to inform decisions on the ground.
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Proveye provides agtech companies with a faster, more frequent and more accurate understanding of metrics relating to crop growth performance such as health and yield, as well as sustainability, including biodiversity, carbon measurement and traceability.
“Our global food system is at a tipping point and Proveye is setting the standard for image-based precision agriculture," said Derek Delaney, CEO of Waystone.
"We see enormous potential for the company’s capabilities at a time where major companies are setting increasingly ambitious sustainability targets.
"Proveye’s technologies enable a leap forward in precision insights in a market that is ripe for innovation. This is the second heavily differentiated, growth sector Irish company we have backed along with IDPal."
The company is an Enterprise Ireland high-potential start-up (HPSU) and was founded by Jerome O’Connell and Prof Nick Holden, of UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering.
The funding will enable the company to grow its customer base, and capitalise on its proven technology to develop further solutions across grassland, arable crops, and into more specialist areas of UAV image processing.
O’Connell, CEO of Proveye, said: “This investment comes at a time of rapid growth for the company as we demonstrate the value of a new generation of image-based analytics in agriculture.
"Our talented team is working with some of the leading names in the agriculture industry to solve challenges previously out of reach to substantially increase certainty and accuracy in management decisions at the field, farm and even regional scale.”
This investment follows on from the company’s success in winning a €225,000 contract with the European Space Agency last September.
"We are excited to embark upon this new phase of growth bringing our products to solve ever-more complex problems for our clients, building on the long-term power of our insights’ platform," O'Connell continued.
"Our clients are invested in this potential as they search for new ways to measure sustainability and productivity at multiple scales. Together, we are redefining the basis on which critical decisions are made in agriculture and natural resources. We’re thrilled for what’s ahead.”
Photo: Pictured at NovaUCD are Proveye founders Jerome O’Connell (left) and Prof Nick Holden, UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering. (Pic: Nick Bradshaw, Fotonic)
