This year’s SouthSTART saw the innovation-fest bring back a deep dive on Agtech for the first time in a few years. The program included a series of Summits after the main day’s packed agenda which allowed smaller groups to meet and share ideas, form connections and dive into the opportunities and challenges of specific sectors. Alongside Agtech, which was formally billed as “Agritech & Food Security”, were day-long sessions devoted to: “Health & Biotech”, “Ecosystem & Community” and “Climate & Clean Energy”.
SouthSTART’s early days
SouthSTART launched in 2013 with it’s inaugural gathering of those who wanted to challenge status quo thinking, talk big ideas, future gaze and showcase Australian innovation. Since then it has been billed as a start up festival grounded in the Festival State, and a celebration of change-making with the bonus of good food and wine.
Twelve years later SouthSTART retains a slightly subversive 'tell it like it is' vibe. This year I sensed that there was also an undercurrent of anxiety around funding, the role of venture capital in Agtech and continuing concern around adoption rates, where profitable growth comes from, and whether Australia can truly lead on the global stage.
My SouthSTART experience
But let’s go back a bit . . . my first SouthSTART was actually in 2021. I was invited to be part of a panel alongside fellow Aussie Agtech founders Olympia Yarger from Goterra and Justin Webb of Agriwebb, moderated by Sarah Nolet, who went on to co-found Agtech-focussed venture capital company Tenacious Ventures. We were just coming out of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there was uncertainty but a level of exciting possibility, and as founders we were all digging deeper into really proving out our business models and products.
We had all achieved a level of product-market fit. For Agriwebb that was leading to expansion in the US, for Goterra a scaling up of their modular ‘maggot robots’ and their first commercial contracts, and for us at AgriDigital, a focus on introducing digital inventory finance to the grain supply chain and expanding our digital offering to grain growers. If I remember correctly all three companies were embarking on or had just completed funding rounds to support growth.
SouthSTART Agritech Panel 2025
Four years later comes Pollinate, a Summit session at SouthSTART in partnership with the South Australian AgriTech Meetup Group. To be clear, Pollinate was much more than just the panel I was part of; it was a day of forming connections, meeting early-stage Agtech founders, supporters and renewing relationships with those of us who have been around for a while now. Olympia and John Fargher (Agriwebb cofounder) alongside yours truly fronted up for a reboot of our 2021 panel - or was it? This time we were led in discussion by Michael Macolino who has done so much to develop and add to the South Australian Agtech and Climate Tech scenes.
The focus was not as much on what we are yet still to do (a hell of a lot, by the way, it is not a short time horizon of effort to build digital, connected and sustainable value chains across food, fibre and fuel!) but on what we had learned, what we had overcome, what we would perhaps do differently with the benefit of our lived experience.
Michael had his job cut out for him!
Olympia is perhaps the only person who makes me look mild, accomodating and even slightly anodyne by comparison. She might just be Australia’s “most loved, least-funded” founder by her own coining, and on Thursday, 6 March 2025 in the continuing dry conditions of our McLaren Vale surrounds, she let loose. Olympia is continuously told that her outspoken approach is dangerous to her own interests. Perhaps, but I wonder why is she deemed outspoken to begin with? Is it because, she swears a lot, or because she uses edgy analogies, or maybe because she is just plain loud? I don’t think so. I think it is because she swears loudly and makes people laugh, sometimes a little uncomfortably, about one group of investors in particular: venture capitalists.
All three companies: AgriDigital, Agriwebb and Goterra are vc-funded in some way, whether by traditional, corporate or family-office venture capital. We have all benefited from this, so what is Olympia calling out? And what message were John and I supporting as part of this year’s SouthSTART Panel? Put simply, in our own ways, we were all calling out the reality that Agtech is both underfunded and unfavoured.
What is Agtech’s Problem?
On the way home from SouthSTART my mind turned over and over - why has Agtech struggled to secure higher levels of funding in a country that prides itself on its agricultural roots?
Naturally, there is no simple answer, it is not just that:
- product development cycles are long
- seasonal and climate variability creates unpredictability
- commodity market volatility leads to pricing risk
- farmer digital adoption has been slow
- incumbents have not rushed to work with Agtech start ups and scale ups in meaningful ways on commercial terms, nor that
- we don't have a funded and focussed national Agtech strategy;
the problem is deeper. I believe that Agtech is fundamentally not well understood or valued for its potential and actual impact by most investors. Many investors are initially interested, because who isn’t interested in food, where it comes from and supporting farmers. But this is not Agtech.
Agtech enables businesses built on harnessing biological lifecycles. Agtech enables supply chains that are long with many participants spread across the globe. Agtech software often requires integration with hardware, machinery and physical infrastructure. Agtech operates in areas of low and no connectivity. Agtech that solves one problem tends to create or expose other problems meaning it is rarely stand alone.
This is Agtech, and this is the reality of a complex system.
These complexities and a less-than-a-decade-old startup ecosystem mean we are still working a lot of things out. To date Agtech has not achieved viral growth rates, so it struggles to attract post Series A funding. Agtech founders are often told that their operational metrics aren’t good enough and that the pathway to profitability is too long or unclear.
The reality is that Agtech is in its early stages of development. We are still refining business models, product development and distribution, pricing, who pays and when, how successful partnerships work, the challenges of glocalization, and more.
Agtech needs access to capital to continue growing, learning, adapting, partnering and integrating. At AgriDigital we are very capital efficient, our customer and operational metrics get better and better each year, we are a lean, local team that has focussed on working smarter, and we know how to make tough decisions and prioritise. We, and others like us, are worth investing in.
As SouthSTART 2025 showed, the Agtech community remains driven by urgency, frustration, and optimism in equal measure. We have made strides, and we need ongoing collaboration between and backing by farmers, supply chain, investors, and government to truly accelerate Agtech’s impact. After all, the world can’t afford for our most pressing problems in food, fibre, and fuel to remain unsolved.
