Photo Shutterstock Nine budding knowledge businesses were represented during the final meeting of the Startlife Accelerate course. All aim to take significant strides in making the world more sustainable.
The Accelerate programme helps Wageningen start-ups devise a business plan and seek customers and funding. In this seventh edition of the course, sensor technology and increasing crop yields featured prominently.
Ink printer
InPhocal from Eindhoven uses laser technology to print on food and food packaging, enabling food businesses to replace their polluting ink printers. The international start-up Infitive developed sensors capable of checking the quality of apples and berries in storage, thus reducing food waste. And the German business Crocus Labs uses sensors and algorithms to deploy LED lighting more efficiently, reducing growers’ energy consumption by as much as ten per cent.
The British start-up Glaia impresses with its ability to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants. This enables plants to transform more CO2 into energy while increasing the yield by as much as 50 per cent in some cases. Swedish Irriot developed precision irrigation that uses a platform with multiple sensors to reduce water consumption by half while increasing production by 30 per cent.
Ecosystem of entrepreneurs
All of these businesses followed the Accelerate course in Wageningen to develop their business plan, find investors and meet partners to help them test and scale up their technology, thus becoming part of Wageningen’s ecosystem of entrepreneurs.
Almost all contribute new technologies capable of reducing the environmental impact of food production. The British start-up Solasta Bio, for example, developed peptides that serve as pesticides. The peptides eliminate plague insects while sparing other insects. This sustainable alternative to chemical pesticides will only make it to the market if Solasta Bio finds a large partner capable of funding the complex admissions process and with an extensive sales network. A match with a suitable business partner may well have been made during the online reception following the presentations.
