15. October 2020

Follow Up Agvolution

Bodenschmiede-finalist started batch production

How have the finalists of the Bodenschmiede ideas competition been doing since its end in June? Farm & Food asked Andreas Heckmann. He is co-founder and CEO of the the startup Agvolution and participated in the ideas competition. You can find his pitch for the Farmalyzer IoT platform here (German).

By Sarah Liebigt

Farm & Food: Thank you very much for the interview. Please introduce your project agvolution.

Andreas Heckmann: My name is Andreas Heckmann. I am co-founder and managing director of Agvolution. We have developed a solution that enables better monitoring of plant stocks and soil conditions in the field, thus helping farmers to make decisions about irrigation or fertilization. The farmer gets the possibility to make decisions based on data. He always knows at any time and at any place what is going on in the fields.

What has happened since the live pitch, how has your project progressed?

Since the ground forge we have been following our business plan. We have been able to win further orders and we have been able to complete our industrially mature series for the sensor hardware, which is very gratifying. They are now in production and we will deliver the first few hundred sensors in November. This allows us to further strengthen our relationship with our customers.

And we are very active in the form of irrigation, e.g. for smart city projects: Wherever green spaces and public green areas are to be irrigated, our solution can help to increase efficiency and make the irrigation process more coordinated. Especially during peak periods, when drought occurs, it is sometimes hard to know what to do first in the city. And that’s where prioritization by the sensors helps.

What difficulties or problems have you encountered in recent months?

We manufacture electronics and are dependent on electronic components. And like so many others, the corona crisis has caused delays. But we were able to cushion this quite well because we had planned for a three-month delay in our business plan.

Do you think this has gradually faded away or are you still planning for delays from Covid19?

We were able to plan for it now and we told the customers in advance. That was not a problem because the work was also at a standstill there. Covid19 affected everyone. It’s just that you want to move forward but can’t and that was difficult for us.

However, we also have public contracts and we noticed that the administration was hampered by the Corona situation, which in turn led to delays. But I think the worst is over.