Why European Agricultural Startups Should Join Agro Innovation Lab!

Europe’s startups are on the rise. When you hear this sentence you mostly think about IT startups making their way up using a disruptive approach that „has the potential to revolutionize the industry“. What you rarely hear about though are agricultural startups. Time to change this train of thought for good.

The recently opened Austrian accelerator Agro Innovation Lab (AIL) aims to support agronomy with full forces. AIL is a fully-owned subsidiary of RWA Raiffeisen Ware Austria AG, one of the main players in the field of agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe with subsidaries in more than 10 countries and about 1.000 distribution sites spread over their core markets in Austria and CEE. AIL currently has four employees working from their headquaters in Vienna’s 10th district.

Why Build Agro Innovation Lab?

RWA Group in cooperation with the Raiffeisen Lagerhaus cooperatives (one of the best-known places for farmer’s to go when they’re in need of new equipment, input materials or if they want to sell their agro-commodities) decided to form AIL as a new innovation hub. “Times are moving ever faster and technological change is ever more rapid. As a trading company we are required to bring more modern services and more intelligent products to market. This demands creativity, problem-solving expertise and courage. This is how we want to actively shape the future of agriculture,” says Christoph Metzker, Head of the Input Materials Division of RWA.

Actively shaping the future of agriculture is exactly what startups are offered by this accelerator. To be more precise, the objective of AIL is to make innovation more accessible to farmers. Why? Simple: preparing for the steady advance of digitalization is what will not only help RWA to stay on top but also what will make a farmer’s work even more enjoyable.

One Accelerator To Bring European Agricultural Innovation Forward

What AIL keeps their focus on

What is surprising about this accelerator, is that „Agro Innovation Lab“ is only one division of the company. This is the part that supports entrepreneurs with services tailored to their individual needs. The second division is „Agro Innovation“ which offers a variety of innovative agricultural services and products like the Lagerhaus drone as well as a soil sampling & analysis just to name two.

AIL is currently seeking agricultural startups across Europe to join their acceleration program, starting from September & lasting until December 2016. “We are looking for startups that are taking the next step with their product or service and want their market launch to be a great success,” says Reinhard Bauer, Managing Director at Agro Innovation Lab. The program is aimed at both startups who want to test their prototypes in practice and those which already have a market-ready product or service.

Now, why should your startup join the first round of AIL?

First of all, as mentioned above the accelerator calls for European startups which will give yourself a chance to closer compare what others are doing and exchange ideas in the process.

Secondly, despite its variety of offers AIL focuses on their acceleration program, enabling your company to take its next steps in the market. The main objective is to support young companies to take their business model to the next level, helping them to expand and secure their market positioning. Agro Innovation Lab thinks long-term here – to ensure that their ventures take off and enter the next level they support their startups as a cooperational partner, investor or even both.

Apart from the main goals, during the program founders will actively be provided with intensive coaching by experts & mentors and will be given the necessary resources to develop their company further. These resources include training in business and organizational matters as well as offering contact with a broad network of potential investors, the main agro-players in Europe, public institutions, selected service providers etc.

For the maximum of five startups that will be accepted for the first round, AIL will provide you with a grant worth EUR 35,000 and, optionally, EUR 15.000 in cash. The grant will be provided in the form of incubator services within the AIL acceleration program.

Sounds good? We think so too.

Application can be submitted through the accelerator’s website and is open until June 26th. To secure your spot, apply now!

The AIL innovation process 2016

_____________

Sharing is caring so please share this post. Thank you!