From left: Robert Shine, Kieran Supple, Ronan Boyle. Image: Orla Murray/Coalesce
This year’s winners include a bovine monitoring tool, a system to reduce slurry emissions and a way to grow potatoes faster.
Roscommon-based agritech Reap Interactive bagged the Start-up Innovator of the Year award as well as a €10,000 prize for its livestock management tool at Enterprise Ireland’s latest Innovation Arena Awards.
Nine finalists took part in a live pitching competition in front of a panel of judges and an audience at the National Ploughing Championships in Co Laois yesterday (17 September).
BovinePlus, Reap Interactive’s innovation, tracks individual animals and uses AI and image analysis to provide real-time data on the weight, health and water intake of the animals.
The system identifies issues including underperforming animals and enhances the efficiency of the feed provided to them. The gleaned data can offer insights that can boost farm profitability and efficiency.
BovinePlus is already used in farms in Ireland and Reap Interactive plans to expand into England, Europe and the US with an investment of €1m funded by Enterprise Ireland and a private equity investor.
“You’re not looking at herd average, you’re looking at every one of them individually so that they’re being reared in the most efficient manner possible and that has a knock-on environmental impact,” the company’s founder Kieran Supple told the Business Post earlier this year.
Also battling it out for the start-up innovator award were Cotter Agritech and RT Sales. Cotter Agritech previously won the first AgTech UCD accelerator programme for start-ups in 2022.
The other winners on the day were Samco Agricultural Manufacturing, which won the Innovation Arena Championship Award, and Easyfix, which won the Green Impact Award.
The Innovation Arena Champion Award is given to an established company focused on scaling and innovation. Samco won for their new application system and mulch film that allows for potatoes to be planted earlier in the season.
Green Impact Award winner Easyfix’s new technology stimulates bacterial growth in slurry to reduce ammonia and methane emissions. Low electrical current is passed through slurry, or liquid livestock manure, that stimulates the growth of bacteria.
“We believe that Irish-owned enterprises can, over time, be the prime driver of the Irish economy, and Irish agritech companies and farm families will have an important role to play in that shared ambition,” said Enterprise Ireland CEO Leo Clancy.
Last year’s Start-up Innovator of the Year was Proveye, an agritech based in NovaUCD, that removes noise from image data, making it easier to understand and derive insights.
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