French startup Inarix is on a mission to help farmers better determine the quality and value of their crops, making for a more efficient food supply system. Based in Paris, the company has just secured €3.1 million to expand.
Feeding our globally growing world is getting more and more complicated. From climate change affecting crop production, and geopolitical problems causing supply chain disruptions to extreme weather events and spiralling inflation, food producers have an immense challenge ahead.
It means that each and every grain produced is important. We can’t afford to be wasteful and processes need to be as optimal as possible. Paris-based Inarix aims to achieve this by leveraging AI-based tech.
The agritech startup has just secured a €3.1 million seed round led by Ankaa Ventures, Label Investment, Newfund, Alliance for Impact and Resiliance, as well as business angel Francis Nappez, CEO of Hectar.
Launched in 2018 by Pierre Chapelle, Inarix allows users to get real-time crop qualification results through a picture of their crops – which they can take on their mobile. The data produces empowers more informed decisions about the value and quality of the crop, so that any appropriate action can be taken at the right time.
Inarix founder and CEO Pierre Chapelle: “Essentially, what we are doing is transforming your smartphone into a pocket laboratory. The feedback that we’ve gotten from our current customers shows that being able to get these types of results instantaneously, on-the-go, and without having to use large and complex machinery has been a gamechanger for them, so we’re excited to further build out the technology to make it more widely available to all agriculture players.”
The platform uses AI to conduct the crop analysis which provides a multicriteria measurement solution, replacing time-consuming action from several machines with just one fast smartphone.
The Parisian startup already counts some of the top players in the French cereal industry as customers and it is currently used to determine two main crops: barley and soft wheat.
Alexandre Pierron-Darbonne from Label: “We believe Inarix has the potential to become the global reference in the billion-dollar cereal quality control market, completely transforming the way the industry currently operates and disrupting the space.”
With this new investment, the team plan to develop the technology to also be able to diagnose and provide data on other crops such as corn, soybeans and coffee in the next 6-12 months. This will coincide with US expansion, where corn and soybeans are the main crops.
Ankaa Ventures’ Jonathan Cohen-Sabban: “Inarix is disrupting a sector as critical as crop and agricultural products analysis thanks to its AI-based technology. The easy scalability of its solution allows all the players along the value chain, from farmers to end-clients, to reduce waste and guarantee the overall quality of agricultural products. We are proud to accompany the company in its ambition to improve food security and sustainability.”
Pierre-Jean Cobut from Newfund said: “As Inarix continues to expand the types of crops they can analyze, expanding to the U.S. market is the obvious next step in their commercialization efforts. We are looking forward to seeing their accelerated growth and supporting them in their journey.”