Drone Ag

Summary

Drone Ag enables farmers to leverage the power of drones through automation and AI. Its Skippy Scout platform provides crop analysis in a fraction of the time of field walking or other drone systems. Now they are ready to grow, aiming to help bring the next level of automation to this $240bn/yr industry.

• Multi award-winning agtech software platform
• Our estimates indicate users saved 785+ hours of labour in the UK last season
• In use by Taylor Farms Mexico and Agrii - being trialled by Kellogg's Origins Farmers
• More than 150 users in 18 countries, across over 500 farms

Idea

The need for sustainable agriculture is driving growth in the agtech market, predicted to reach 240bn/yr by 2050.

In 2018, frustrated with complicated, time consuming drone tech, we decided to build our own software platform to make drones work for farmers and their businesses, through a focus on major efficiency gains, simplicity and ease of use.

Skippy Scout uses flight algorithms developed in-house, to plot fast, safe routes through 3d space, plus AI that provides accurate, repeatable measurements to generate actionable field reports within minutes of a flight. We believe that this can be up to 20x faster than possible on foot and our research suggests this is faster than most other drone-based systems.

Skippy Scout is a proven platform, our own calculations estimate that it saved UK users over 785 hours of labour last season. It is also now operating globally across over 18 countries.

Since our last raise on Crowdcube, we have grown our client numbers and released V2.5 as planned. We have also developed a new field overview capture system, and deployed the first Skippy Nest prototype here on our farm - a fully automated drone basestation allowing 24/7 operation.

With the ag drones market predicted to grow at a CAGR of over 30%, our focus now shifts to growing our team and user base, bringing on-board more large enterprise clients as we start to commercialise at scale.

Team

Our current team is experienced and highly motivated, with a farming and tech background which has allowed us to move fast with purpose. We feel we have the necessary skills to take our vision forward and manage an expanding team of in-house expertise with plans to grow the team by 14 positions, in software development, AI data analysis, sales and compliance over the next 18 months.

Jack Wrangham (CEO) - from a farming family, Jack understands the needs of farm businesses & has a proven track record in developing and commercialising drone systems and AI analysis, bringing Skippy Scout to market.

Abu Salim (CTO Full-Time Post Raise) - Abu has successfully managed the delivery of complex software projects for the past 8 years.

Alex Macdonald-Smith (COO) - has been with Drone Ag for four years & now runs day-to-day operations across the company.

Key Staff:

Software Lead - 9 years software development

Emma Scorror (GIS/AI Analyst) Farming background, GIS degree

Edwin Nichols (Training/Sales) Ag background and degree

Hugh Wrangham (Part-Time Machinery Lead) Previous R&D Consultant for McLaren

Plus the advisory board includes members with 12 years agronomy experience, a leading role at Syngenta Digital agronomy, 10+ years in global investment banking, a senior staff engineer at Google Switzerland, and a member of the Harper Adams Hands Free Farm core team.