SVG Ventures | THRIVE and Bayer announce their Sustainability Challenge Winners

On September 9, SVG Ventures | THRIVE and Bayer announced the winners of their 2021 Sustainability Challenge.

The Sustainable Startup Award was presented to Haystack, a US based company that enables carbon market scalability by helping farmers and carbon markets quantify carbon accurately and cost-effectively. Haystack will receive a prize package that includes investment from SVG Ventures and a place in THRIVE’s award winning Accelerator Program, in addition to access to Bayer's investment and R&D teams.

MagGrow is the winner of the Sustainable Scaleup Award. MagGrow’s technology helps farmers significantly reduce waste and drift linked to conventional crop spraying, delivering optimal plant protection using permanent rare earth magnets. As a winner, MagGrow will have the opportunity to explore a proof-of-concept pilot project with Bayer, receive automatic nomination for THRIVE’s TOP 50 listing, and gain access to Bayer resources and THRIVE’s ecosystem.

The Agtech community also cast its votes for its favorite startup and recognized AgroCognitive as the People’s Choice Award winner. AgroCognitive is an automated and affordable precision agriculture platform that gives insights to farmers.

Bayer and SVG Ventures | THRIVE partnered to explore the vast agricultural innovation ecosystem for the ideas needed to realize a step change in the sustainability of agriculture. The focus areas for the Challenge centered around three ambitious commitments set by Bayer for 2030 – reducing on-field greenhouse gas emissions produced by key crops in major ag markets by 30 percent; reducing the environmental impact of crop protection by 30 percent; and empowering 100 million smallholder farmers with access to agronomic knowledge.

“Initiatives like this demonstrate the entire industry's commitment to shaping a sustainable future for agriculture, and collaboration is key to making this future a reality and unlocking new possibilities for more productive and efficient farming,” said Bob Reiter, Head of Research and Development at the Crop Science division of Bayer. “We are honored to acknowledge and celebrate this year's winners and look forward to seeing how these innovative minds bring their ideas to life.”

“Climate change is one of the biggest crises currently facing humanity, and we all have a responsibility to play our part in making our global food systems more sustainable,” said John Hartnett, Founder and CEO SVG Ventures | THRIVE. “We’re delighted to partner with Bayer on this Challenge to accelerate sustainable agriculture innovation across the entire value chain.”

Ten finalists, including six startups and four scaleups, were selected from a pool of around 300 applicants across 57 countries—two from Australia and one each from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, UK, and the US. Each finalist pitched to an expert judging panel featuring representatives from Bayer's Crop Science division, Leaps by Bayer impact investment team, Yamaha Motor Ventures, and Cargill. The finalist companies were Autonomous Pivot, AgroCognitive, ClearLeaf, Dronebee, Goanna Ag, Haystack, MagGrow, Ponce, Think Bio and Vatorex.