Startup “ZoomAgri” may not be a well-known name but their customers include some of the biggest companies in the food and agriculture sector. Companies like commodity trading giants Cargill and ADM, and beverage conglomerate ABInBev are among those using ZoomAgri’s AI-powered technology that can recognize grain and seed varieties as well as their quality in a single scan.
Based in Argentina, ZoomAgri is the result of two Argentinian grain traders, Fernando Miguel Martinez de Hoz and Jacob Rommelaar, teaming in 2017 with electrical engineer Matias Micheloud to find a solution to challenges they faced in grain and oilseed trading.
“We would purchase the commodities locally from farmers and get them into the silos, but when we asked the silo manager about the quality, they didn’t know,” said Rommelaar. “On top of that, we’d export vessels of soybeans and only receive a report about a quality issue two days later, when it was too late to change anything.”
ZoomAri’s system looks a lot like a computer scanner, which captures an image of a grain or seed sample. The image is then processed by ZoomAgri’s proprietary system that is trained to classify the sample based on the visual quality traits for that variety and provide results within three minutes. ZoomAgri says it currently has an image database of more than 250 million individual images powering its algorithms. Watch a video of ZoomAgri’s tech in action HERE.
ZoomAgri started off with barley. Since 2021, Malteruop has been using ZoomAgri’s technology to test malt barley it receives at plants in Australia and New Zealand to ensure it meets at least 90% purity. The company says it has used genetic analysis to confirm the system’s accuracy. GrainCorp has been testing two units for a few years to monitor quality of its barley and the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre has been evaluating a system as well.
ZoomAgri has two different systems available – ZoomSpex for grading and ZoomVarieties for variety determination. Currently, the systems support corn, soy, wheat, and barley, with additional crops expected in the future.
The company just closed a $6 million Series A funding round that will help it expand the list of crops it covers as well as make inroads into the North American market. ZoomAgri currently has customers in 25 different countries. Learn more HERE. (Sources: AgFunder, Western Producer, GrainCentral)
