[Startup Interview] Alfiya Kayumova, CEO and co-founder, Green Growth, USA

Green Growth is a US-based agritech startup that runs a software and hardware-based solution consisting of a set of sensors, combined in a single infrastructure.

Data is collected during the harvest and is presented in a form of a heat-map: yield data from every acre of a field. The company’s CEO and co-founder Alfiya Kayumova elaborates.

Introduce your company

Green Growth is the international developer of real-time yield mapping technology for farmers. The technology, called "Green Growth Yield Monitor", combines the best practices in telematics, data science, and interface building to make hardware integration and software usage as simple as possible. The company is based in Delaware, USA, and has an office in Riga, Latvia.

During harvest, yield data from every hectare (U.S. acre) is collected directly from harvesting machines, analyzed, and presented in real-time as a heat map. As a result, the web app allows farmers to see yield maps which play a crucial role in farm management processes, as they enable optimization of farm inputs, such as fertilizers, seeds, and crop protection products, which are very important steps towards sustainable farming. The company has already begun sales and the signing of its first clients.

Who are the company’s founders and what are their backgrounds?

Green Growth was founded by Alfiya Kayumova and Dr. Evgeny Savin.

Alfiya Kayumova was born to a family of farming landowners, so she knows this market from her youngest years. After graduation, she worked in the investment and financial sector, and from 2017 to 2021, she held the position of Vice President for international development and investments at an AI startup. Evgeny Savin holds a Ph.D. in physics, and prior to founding Green Growth worked for several international technology companies including startups and corporations.

How is Green Growth financed?

In March 2022 we closed a $200K pre-seed round financed by European VC fund New Nordic Ventures.

What industry does Green Growth operate in?

As a developer of real-time yield mapping technology for farmers, Green Growth operates in the agriculture field, working closely with farmers and helping them operate much more efficiently. We are also open to working with the leading OEMs, like CLAAS, John Deere, New Holland etc.

What would you say are the dynamics that have shaped the agtech space?

For decades, the agriculture industry developed slowly, with a high resistance to innovation, but times have changed. Today, it is facing the global challenge of feeding a growing human population with ever limited and scarce resources. This means farmers must increase intensity, and create more with less, rather than growing the acreage of their operations, which may simply not be possible.

This is why agriculture is one of the most dynamically developing industries of the modern era. Agtech is a great niche for new technologies, too. Just imagine: farmers now need to control, monitor and operate a vast land of fields 24/7, 365 days a year. Data comes from satellites, machinery, drones, and scouting. All of this data needs to be aggregated and interpreted in real-time and then transformed into actual decisions. Sounds complicated? These tasks are solved efficiently with satellite imagery interpretation, IoT, self-driving machines, drones, and many more technologies. Needless to say, great minds are working very hard to make best technology practices suitable for the final customer - farmers. We are happy to say that we are one of these minds.

Why did you start Green Growth? What opportunities did you see?

Our team of founders combines experience both in agriculture and in products and technology. For quite a while, we observed and collected the problems and inefficiencies farmers encountered during their day-to-day operations including harvesting.

In crop production, yield is the most important indicator of farm efficiency, which is why it is so important to have truly accurate information about land productivity from each sq m of farmland. Therefore, we decided to start from harvesting and make a real difference. Bringing our skills and excitement to help crop producers has helped them create more output and feed more people.

What problem or problems does Green Growth solve?

Accuracy is the most important factor in agriculture and yield is the most important indicator of the efficiency of the farm. During the year, the farm puts in a lot of effort and spends a lot of money on the purchase of equipment, fertilizers, plant protection products, plowing, sowing and much more for the sole purpose of getting the highest quality and quantity yield. However, the total amount of harvested crop does not answer the questions "Was I effective on every piece of my land? Did I get the maximum profit from each sq m of my land?"

To answer these questions, we at Green Growth have developed a SaaS platform that displays real-time yields during harvesting. Understanding where, how and when it is necessary to influence the size of the crop will allow the agrarian to reduce costs, building work not on the principle of "here and now", but for the long term. What's more, Green Growth's highly accurate yield maps help reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticides needed to meet the goals of sustainable and regenerative agriculture.

What gives Green Growth the competitive edge?

Team. We are really proud of our team. It is a blast to have together experts in physics, product, hardware, software, manufacturing, and of course, agriculture businesses. We research best practices and bring them to life. Our experience allows us to run fast and develop valuable solutions for farmers while in close communication with them. For example, we were able to significantly decrease production costs of yield monitors, therefore ensuring this technology becomes more accessible, cost-effective and scalable.

Who are your customers?

Mainly our customers are crop producers themselves. They can be any size: starting with farmers with 1 harvester and up to farmers with a fleet of hundreds of machines. We also work and negotiate with agricultural equipment and machinery manufacturers to be able to integrate our solutions into the machine ecosystem.

What does Green Growth need in order to grow?

It is a cycle. We are growing by solving customer pain points. In order to get these insights, we need to communicate and get more customers. More data means more product ideas. Some of these ideas will evolve into great new products that will help us grow.

What is your growth strategy?

We are constantly looking for partners for cross-sales and integrations. We are testing tons of ideas and are planning our releases on new continents.

The mid-term strategy sees the startup covering all machines in the crop production chain in order to provide end-to-end analytics to help determine the effectiveness of all stages: from tilling, seeding to harvesting, and based on AI, giving farmers real insight on how to best improve efficiency.

In which markets are you looking to establish your presence?

In the mid-term, we are going to gain a foothold in the European market and begin expansion into the markets of the US and Latin America. Moreover, as described above, we plan to cover all machines in the crop production chain to provide end-to-end analytics, which helps determine the effectiveness of all stages: from tilling, seeding to harvesting, and based on AI, giving farmers real insight on how to best improve efficiency.

What are your plans for the coming 12 months?

We are looking to raise a new $2 million seed round, expand our product line with new precision agriculture solutions as well as maintain existing clients and attract new ones. In addition, we will continue international expansion and building partner networks. 

www.greengrowth.tech

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