CNBC has named its Disruptor 50 list for the year, and six agriculture-related companies made the list. An additional three companies offer tech that may also be applicable in the agriculture sector.
It’s the 11th year for the list, which spotlights companies overcoming economic challenges and capital market hurdles by strategically chasing major market opportunities.
The companies range from broad acre commercial agriculture to small or micro scale production. In all of the company descriptions supplied by CNBC, most of the companies have a sustainability angle. Below is the write up CNBC included for each company:
See the Full List of 50 companies
12. Pivot Bio -Pivot Bio’s breakthrough could disrupt the $180 billion synthetic fertilizer market over the next decade and reduce greenhouse gases. It’s set to transform how farmers grow their crops — specifically corn, wheat and rice — by replacing harmful, polluting synthetic fertilizers with sustainable-produced nitrogen that can improve yields.
38. Bee Hero -Founded in 2017, this innovator has developed a way to decrease crop risk tied to bees and increase crop yields. BeeHero provides commercial beekeepers with a service that can remotely track and monitor apiaries to diagnose problems in hives and care for honeybees, which are needed to pollinate crops. Bee colonies are at risk due to disease, pesticides and climate change, and more than one-third of them disappear each year.
34. Mast Reforestation – The Seattle-based startup, which cultivates seedlings in nurseries to restore forests, sends mega-drones to rapidly plant tree seeds within 30 days after wildfires. Last year, Mast Reforestation replanted the 300-acre Henry Creek forest in Western Oregon after a devastating wildfire.
41. Grub Market – The company works directly with farmers and growers, as well as buyers, with a suite of software solutions that include inventory, warehouse management, grower accounting and mobile apps for food wholesalers and distributors.
46. Bowery -In a convergence of farming and technology, indoor farms rely on LED lighting, robotics, machine learning and data-collecting sensors to produce a variety of produce in a more sustainable way than conventional agriculture. These climate-controlled farms, which don’t require soil or sunlight, use no pesticides and 95% less water. Planted anywhere and often nearby cities, such growing facilities can supply nearby local grocery stores and restaurants with convenient, year-round fresh produce, and shorten deliveries.
49. Monarch Tractor – Monarch believes its zero-emission MK-V tractor, which came off production lines this past December, can make a difference in climate change. In addition to ending the era of manual diesel tractors, the use of autonomous field EVs can address labor shortages, safety concerns and risk of government regulation, and high-tech farm equipment outfitted with the latest cameras and sensors can learn as it moves through crop rows.
Additionally there were sone companies listed in the CNBC D50 that feature technologies which could impact agriculture. These companies operate in related sectors that either provide services to agriculture or the technology could be applied to agricultural uses. There probably were more but these were the ones that stood out to our team immediately.
10. Flexport -Founded in 2013 by Ryan Petersen to try to better manage the flow of goods that get put on cargo ships, planes, trucks, and railroads and then transported all over the world, Flexport moved freight forwarding and brokerage services into the cloud alongside deeper data analysis.
13. Einride – Swedish startup Einride is among those looking to swap out the diesel engines that currently dominate the industry in favor of fleets of autonomous electric vehicles. Founded in 2016, Einride has attracted big-name investors such as Temasek, Soros Fund Management and the venture capital arm of one of the world’s largest shipping companies, AP Moller-Maersk. The company deployed an autonomous, electric freight vehicle on a public road in 2019.
26. ElevateBio – ElevateBio, based in the Boston-area biotech hub, has been described as the health R&D equivalent of a “tech stack,” providing infrastructure for gene editing, stem cells, and protein, viral, and cellular engineering. Its BaseCamp, a 140,000-square-foot warehouse facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, was built to design gene therapy products and collaborate with new partners.
