Start-up Pheno-Inspect GmbH closes seed funding round

Company from the University of Bonn attracts renowned investors from the agricultural sector

Pheno-Inspect GmbH, an AgTech start-up that emerged from research work at the University of Bonn, has successfully closed its first seed financing round. In addition to NRW.BANK and several private investors via the Companisto business angel network, one of the leading agricultural machinery groups, CLAAS, has also joined the company as a strategic investor. Pheno-Inspect GmbH was founded in 2020 as a start-up of the University of Bonn by Philipp Lottes Cyrill Stachniss (Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation and Cluster of Excellence ’PhenoRob’). 

The company offers AI-supported image analysis for agriculture, which automatically analyzes the condition of farmland and supports more efficient crop cultivation. To do so, drone images of the fields are taken and fed into AI-supported software, which can then count plants or detect weeds and diseases, for example. This allows fertilizers and pesticides to be used in a more targeted manner, enabling more cost-effective and sustainable decisions to be made in field management.

Using AI for agriculture

With the seed financing, Pheno-Inspect GmbH plans to expand a scalable platform for the European market and continuously expand its portfolio of AI-supported analysis modules. The focus is on applications for assessing crop density, weed detection, and data-supported decision-making in plant production.

"With the launch of our new FarmAnalyzer(TM) platform, we are making AI-based field analysis with single-plant precision across the entire growing season easily accessible, cost-effective, and truly practical for farmers, for the first time," explains Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Philipp Lottes. "Our aim is to offer agricultural businesses in Europe measurable economic and ecological added value - in particular through significant savings in plant protection products and fertilizers," adds Dr. Josef Exler, Co-Managing Director and Chief Growth Officer.

Co-founder and scientific advisor Cyrill Stachniss emphasizes: "The very high level of interest among investors confirms that our technology meets a previously underserved need in the market. Our innovative research results are being put into practice by Pheno-Inspect GmbH and are reaching more and more users in the agricultural sector."

Origins at the University of Bonn

The start-up was founded in 2020 by Philipp Lottes, who was then working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Bonn, and Cyrill Stachniss, head of the Photogrammetry and Robotics Working Group and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence ’PhenoRob - Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production’ at the University of Bonn.