Irish AgTech company Proveye raises €1 million

Proveye, an AgTech startup based in Dublin, has closed a €1 million seed round. The 2019-founded company's AI image correction software allows AgTech developers to embed digital image analysis into precision agriculture tools, working from drones, satellites and other sensors to facilitate greater accuracy than was previously possible. The software provides accurate data on farm productivity and sustainability.

Proveye aims to partner up agri input providers, agriculture services, food producers and government agencies. A notable contract award for the SaaS business came last September, when it signed a €225,000 deal with the European Space Agency. That funding extended earlier ESA collaborations focused on automated satellite and drone image processing.

Led by Inspire Investments, a division of asset management firm Waystone, together with Enterprise Ireland, the seed funds further extend Proveye's runway for specialist UAV applications based on its image correction technology, and should bring scope for new image solutions targeting both grass pastures and arable crops.

The technology is capable of compiling groups of agricultural images into unified work views, allowing earth observation teams to integrate a number of remote sensor inputs, including the aforementioned satellites, drones and ground-based sensing nodes. It also adjusts imagery to account for difficult weather conditions and lack of sunlight. 

A spinout of University College Dublin, Proveye remains part of the academic innovation community operating from workspace at the university's incubator NovaUCD.

Derek Delaney, CEO at Waystone, noted the relevance of Proveye's application given global food supply chains are approaching a "tipping point." This is the second time it's backed a growth stage business in Dublin, following the identity authentication startup ID-Pal.

"We see enormous potential for the company’s capabilities at a time where major companies are setting increasingly ambitious sustainability targets," Delaney said. "Proveye’s technologies enable a leap forward in precision insights in a market that is ripe for innovation. This is the second heavily differentiated, growth sector Irish company we have backed along with IDPal.”