Quick Information
- Name of Startup: WayBeyond
- Year Founded: 2016
- Website: WayBeyond.io
- Type of company: Pixi Marketing
- HQ Location: New Zealand
Startup Founders:
Darryn Keiller – CEO
Startup one-liner:
WayBeyond is a team of crop science PhDs, data specialists, and developers committed to reshaping horticulture by building digital agronomy tools for farming’s transformation.
Problem the startup solves:
The problem of low-mid tech commercial growers being largely without a clear picture of plant health, crop production and farm practices as they lack solid climate and environmental data. Without this they are unable to achieve optimum yields to feed our continually growing population.
Progress and Current Status:
WayBeyond is helping to feed the world sustainably by providing commercial growers of fresh produce with digital agronomy solutions to improve crop quality, crop yield and to reduce waste.
What is an Inspiring Story about the Startup?:
A grower was getting complaints from a supermarket they supplied about their product’s shelf life. The supermarket expressed serious concerns as shelf-life was very poor. But only a percentage of the product supplied had a short shelf-life while the rest were fine.
When this was investigated, the grower found the poor shelf-life product originated from one greenhouse while the rest were grown in another. So what was happening in that greenhouse? They needed to discover the answer to salvage their relationship with the supermarket.
So they installed our portable wireless sensors in both greenhouses to capture air temperature, radiation, humidity, and carbon dioxide. The installation meant they could compare conditions in each greenhouse, to benchmark one against the other. If they could replicate conditions from the high performing greenhouse in the poor performing one, the product shelf life could be improved.
Studying the data revealed stark differences between the climate conditions in these two greenhouses. Greenhouse 2 had higher night temperatures which meant higher 24hr average temperatures. Generally higher average temperatures are better for growing. Greenhouse 2 had higher radiation which produced stronger, sturdier plants. Greenhouse 2 also had lower humidity so therefore lower disease risk. Lastly Greenhouse 2 had smaller CO2 variation.
This last point, the grower discovered, was because Greenhouse 2 had a ventilation fan which enabled better air flow to the plant and better CO2 oxygen flow within the plant.
So by uncovering these factors and with the data to provide solid intelligence, they could confidently invest in improving the infrastructure of Greenhouse 1 to bring it into line with Greenhouse 2 and increase their shelf life.
Variance in production is something that growers want to avoid but often one facility produces more than another. While they may have a hunch on the reasons for this, they can only put forward their best guesses. Without tangible data to draw conclusions, it is very hard to propose changes or make investments that might improve the output of the lagging facility.
What is a Company the Startup Looks Up to, and Why?:
CEO Darryn Keiller cites Benson Hill as a company that WayBeyond looks up to. Founded in 2012, Benson Hill is a food technology company with a mission to deliver food made better from the beginning. Through their technology platform, which combines data science, plant science and food science, they leverage the natural genetic diversity of plants to develop and commercialize food and ingredients that are more nutritious, better tasting, more sustainable, and more affordable. Benson Hill successfully listed on the NYSE in 2021.
The Company in Four Years Will Be…
In 4 years WayBeyond will have solidified its mission to transform the horticultural industry. Its data and data-gathering solutions will have become industry standard tools, it’s digital agronomy training programmes will run in major agricultural institutions and it will have partnered with key greenhouse technology suppliers and seed companies to bring AI powered prescriptive virtual agronomy practices to low and mid tech growers worldwide.
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