Two Companies, Autonomous Pivot And Bloomfield Robotics, Win The Innovation Icon Award At The Forbes | THRIVE Future Of Food Summit
By Laura Brusca
New York, July 1, 2021 – Today SVG Ventures and Forbes announced that Israeli-based Autonomous Pivot and US-based Bloomfield Robotics’ are the two winners of the Innovation Icon Award at the seventh annual Demo Day at the Forbes | THRIVE Future of Food Summit. During Demo Day, twelve global startups handpicked from an applicant pool of almost 700 companies across 78 countries pitched in front of a record-setting crowd of 2,500 top agriculture food and technology corporations, entrepreneurs, universities, and investors for startup funding.
Autonomous Pivot develops an intelligent platform for optimizing irrigation, fertigation, and crop-protection in fields irrigated by irrigation-pivot. Bloomfield Robotics’ crop assessment services rely on a unique and cost-effective combination of ground-based image capture and deep learning-based processing to help farmers efficiently, effectively, and affordably assess crops. They will receive up to $250k in investment from SVG Ventures as the joint winners of the 2021 Forbes | THRIVE Innovation Icon Award.
“Our Demo Day winners are a true reflection of how important sustainability, innovation, and geographical diversity are to disrupting the agrifood industry globally,” said John Hartnett, Founder & CEO of SVG Ventures | THRIVE. “This year’s cohort was fiercely competitive, which is why we shine a spotlight on them through the Forbes–SVG Ventures partnership, and we can’t wait to see how these companies will continue to transform our food supply.”
“Each year, Demo Day gathers rich ideas and transformative technologies from passionate and dedicated entrepreneurs,” said Sherry Phillips, SVP of ForbesLIVE. “We are delighted to be able to connect these ideas with an eager audience and look forward to continuing to amplify innovative technology solutions on a global scale with THRIVE.”
The Demo Day judging panel comprising of executives from Valmont, Cavallo Ventures, Farm Credit Canada, Kubota, Trimble, and THRIVE thoroughly evaluated each of the finalists and the coveted 2021 Forbes | THRIVE Innovation Icon Award was presented to joint winners, Automonous Pivot and Bloomfield Robotics. The companies that competed at Forbes|Thrive Future of Food Summit were Arva Intelligence, Autonomous Pivot, Bloomfield Robotics, Foodlocker, Goanna Ag, Healthy Cow, Lucent Biosciences, Pheronym, Rubens Technology, Serket, Syocin Biotech, Transpirational.
The Female Leadership and People’s Choice Awards were also presented at the Summit. Dr. Fatma Kaplan was the winner of the Female Leadership Award. She is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pheronym, a startup that uses pheromones for eco-friendly pest control solutions. The company’s bio-control process improves plant health and crop yield using a new pheromone to control parasitic roundworms, control insect pests in the soil, and protect crop roots.
Nigerian-based Foodlocker was the People’s Choice Award winner. Foodlocker is the operating system that optimizes the outcomes and yields of smallholder farmers by supporting and monitoring production activities and opening up big markets using their omnichannel distribution system.
For more information about the Forbes 2021 Forbes|Thrive Future of Food Summit and the speaker lineup, visit: Forbes 2021 Future of Food.
To join the conversation online, follow #FutureofFood.
SVG Ventures | THRIVE is the Founding Partner. Dollar General Corporation, Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) and AgriNovus Indiana are the Presenting Sponsors and Wilbur-Ellis is the Partner Sponsor.
About SVG Ventures | THRIVE
SVG Ventures | THRIVE is the leading global Agrifood investment and innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley, and comprised of top agriculture, food & technology corporations, universities, and investors. With a community of over 5,000 startups from 100 countries, the THRIVE platform invests, accelerates, and creates unparalleled access for entrepreneurs to scale globally to solve the biggest challenges facing the food and agriculture industries. SVG’s existing global partners include Media Partner Forbes and leading government, agriculture, and technology corporations such as Corteva, Driscoll’s, FCC, CED, Gallo, Bayer,Kubota, Land O’Lakes, ICL, UFA, CSIRO, BayWa, Trimble, Taylor Farms, Valmont, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Wilbur-Ellis & Victoria Government.
Crunchbase recognizes SVG Ventures as the most active AgTech investor with a portfolio count of over 50 investments in the sector.
About Forbes
Forbes champions success by celebrating those who have made it, and those who aspire to make it. Forbes convenes and curates the most influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business and making a significant impact on the world. The Forbes brand today reaches more than 140 million people worldwide through its trusted journalism, signature LIVE and Forbes Virtual events, custom marketing programs and 32 licensed local editions in 71 countries. Forbes Media’s brand extensions include real estate, education and financial services license agreements. For more information, visit the Forbes News Hub or Forbes Connect.
Read the original article on Forbes.com.