Study reveals companies with more open innovation in agribusiness
100 Open Startups, consultancy in innovation ecosystems, exclusively shared with AgEvolution a survey about the companies that most bet on open innovation in the agribusiness chain in the last 12 months. The material will also be discussed at the OiWeek event , which takes place next week.
According to the study, among the highlights are BASF, in the Chemical industry; Raízen, in Energy; Unilever, in Consumer Goods; BRF and Cargill, in Food and Beverages; GPA, in Retail, Commerce and Distribution Services; iFood, in Digital Industry; and Corteva Agriscience, in Agriculture.
The consulting platform registered 154 companies in the sector and made Open Innovation with startups in the last 12 months, which represents about 9% of the total companies in the country that do open innovation in all segments.
These companies had 622 relationships with 292 startups in the period. Of this total, 157 have solutions related to agriculture and food (the ones known as Agtechs or Foodtechs) and the other 135 are from other sectors and saw, in agribusiness companies, opportunities for innovation.
“There is still more activity by startups in the final link of the farm to fork , that is, closer to the end consumer than inside the farms. However, initiatives in all links are already very expressive. In fact, there is an accelerated growth ”, commented Bruno Rondani, CEO of 100 Open Startups.
Giddy increase
Not all of these startups are fully dedicated to agribusiness, but all of them also have services or products that serve the sector. This shows that agribusiness is being transformed by startups not only with agricultural solutions or food technologies, but in many other areas.
Within the agribusiness chain, the segments of companies that most did open innovation with startups were food and beverage, retail, commerce and services of Distribution, agriculture, chemical industry, energy and digital industry
In addition to agtechs and foodtechs, the sector is also of interest to startups from different areas and who have also done open innovation in the last 12 months, such as HRTechs (human resources), productivity, IndTechs (industry), RetailTechs (retail), CleanTechs (sustainability or recycling) and LogTechs (logistics).
Among the main trends of startups and open innovation in the agribusiness chain, are Deep Tech (basic technology), Digital Farm (digital agriculture) and Plant Based diets, which will be themes of Oiweek, an event that takes place next week of 28 from September to October 1st.
