CNH Industrial buys Augmenta
The smart agriculture “radar” of Volos-based Greek startup Augmenta is expected to travel around the world, following its acquisition by New York-listed CNH Industrial, the second largest tractor manufacturer in the world with a capitalization of around $20 billion.
“Significant funds will be invested in the company and in the Greek hub. Our goal is to highlight Greek talent and for the company to grow exponentially,” says one of the founders, who assures that there will be no changes in the management of the company after the acquisition. The creation of two talented engineers, Dimitris Evangelopoulos and George Varvarelis, Augmenta is one of the first Greek startup companies to develop technological solutions that untie the hands of farmers and reduce their production costs. It took its first steps in the field of agricultural technology as Agile Agriculture Technologies in 2017 – a name that was later changed to Augmenta – while a milestone for its development was its participation in the innovative entrepreneurship program of Eurobank and its first financing of 500,000 euros from the Greek fund Marathon Venture Capital in 2018.
The team has developed a system (hardware and software) which is installed on the roof of agricultural vehicles, scanning the field and controlling crops in real time on-site (rice, wheat, cotton, corn and generally all cereals). Then the system, which consists of multispectral cameras, “senses” using artificial intelligence and machine vision technologies the parts of the field that need fertilizer, for example, and automatically decides to spread as much fertilizer as is needed in that area of the field where it is essential. In the eyes of producers, such a solution is useful, as it helps to reduce the amount of chemicals and fertilizers, limiting the environmental footprint at the same time.
As Varvarelis had mentioned to Kathimerini, in addition to the fertilizer distribution, the system is also used for the application of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides), contributing to saving more than 50% in chemicals. That benefits the environment, the producer’s pocket, as well as his and the consumer’s health.
