Two Irish agri-food start-ups are among the 10 finalists in the Thrive Europe Challenge which takes place next month (October 7, 2021).
The Europe challenge is the fourth regional challenge and follows challenges held in Australia, Canada and Africa.
Micron Agritech and Carbon Harvesters will take to the stage to present their innovative technology solutions and battle it out for the prestigious award.
They will compete with start-ups from Finland; the Netherlands; Israel; Switzerland; Romania; Spain; the UK; and Sweden.
Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Martin Heydon, is expected to be a special guest at the event.
Thrive Europe Challenge
The Thrive Europe Challenge aims to solve problems of the European agri-food industry by accelerating the development of the ecosystem, and selecting the best start-ups and scale-ups for investment and global recognition.
The challenge is closely aligned with the Farm to Fork Strategy within the European Green Deal, which seeks to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, while doubling down on achieving the UN Strategic Development Goals (SDGs).
One winning start-up will receive the Thrive Europe Challenge Award, brand exposure, access to the Thrive ecosystem, and a spot at pitch finals for the Thrive VIII Accelerator Program (March-June 2022), which includes investment and pitching at the Thrive / Forbes Demo Day.
The winner will also receive automatic acceptance as an Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) finalist.
An expert panel of industry judges will hear pitches from the start-up finalists and participate in the selection of the overall winner. They will also present a recognition award for People’s Choice.
Some of the judges include representatives from Ornua, Zoetis and Microsoft.
Micron Agritech
Micron Agritech was founded in 2019 by Sean Smith, Daniel Izquierdo, Tara McElligott and Jose Lopez, while they were undergraduates at Technological University Dublin (TUD).
They spun-out of the university with their parasite testing technology.
Initially, development of Micron Kit was funded with competition prize money that the team had won with Competitive Start-up Funding from Enterprise Ireland.
The founders went on to showcase their award-winning tech at the Irish National Ploughing Championships in 2019.
Since then, the Micron Agritech team has expanded to a total of nine people and they have raised a seed round of €500,000.
Carbon Harvesters
Carbon Harvesters have set a goal of monetising a farm’s green practices.
It provides weekly updated life cycle assessments of a farm’s milk production system.
It also provides climate mitigation strategies with environmental and economic projections, and can certify reduced emissions when compared to a country’s average.
Carbon Harvesters can also sell a farm’s green practices as carbon offsets or label a product and receive a market premium.