Support for new businesses
Fledgling agricultural startups are getting a helping hand to grow their business from the Sprout agritech business accelerator programme in Palmerston North.
Business strategy advisor Stu Bradbury said Sprout’s job was to help businesses.
‘‘People in New Zealand often have good ideas, but have no idea how to get them to market. At Sprout we can help.’’
Bradbury has experience in the start-up world after founding several businesses in the agri-tech sector, and went on the sell Precision Irrigation, to a United States company.
He said he worked part time for the agriculture incubator programme run by Building Clever Companies (BCC) called Sprout, which looked for new start-ups in the agricultural world, and helped them develop.
‘‘The Sprout hub is somewhere that people can come to. Even if Sprout is outside its six month window, I still like to talk to people and throw ideas around. It can be quite informal as we lead up to the selection process for the next programme.’’
But when Sprout is up and running, they look for the winners.
‘‘We scour the country and get 60 to 100 businesses apply. We do due diligence and talk to people to find out about them. From those our partner businesses, pick the 20 most promising.’’
Of that short list, eight agribusinesses were chosen for progressing.
He said he met interesting people with good ideas, but many of them had no idea how to go to the next step, to get investors and reach the marketing stage.
‘‘Often people have great ideas, but need to educate the market. Companies that have done well have honed in on customers’ problems. But in the future, companies that will do well are those that can anticipate the market, and see a solution to a problem, before anyone else has thought of the problem.’’
Bradbury said BCC was not set up to provide start-up money for a company, but prepared entrepreneurs so they could talk to potential investors.
Among Sprout’s successes are Ceratech which delivers manmade honey comb frames to hives for more honey and faster colony growth.
Live farm tracking service Agritrack was just a one-manband when it became one of eight companies to take part in Sprout.
Now, the company has four staff, investment of $550,000 and clients across New Zealand and Australia.
Knowby is a mobile-based platform for sharing standard operating procedures between a team in any work environment. Knowby is due for release later this year and has secured prerelease sales with large companies.
Another business Ectosolutions combats mites and in particular varroa mite, but could be a natural treatment for all mites.
Bradbury said he tells people not to reveal too much about their business to him until they are protected by a patent.
He said they could put people in touch with lawyers who would know about protecting an idea.
They also put designers in touch with mentors, business people and entrepreneurs.
‘‘Agritech is really important to New Zealand. When you look at past developments they include Gallagher electric fence solutions, which go all over the world. And to Dunedin, the first frozen meat shipment in 1882. In New Zealand we still have a number 8 wire mentality, and can do many things. We need to tap into that.’’