“The programme will culminate in an opportunity to pitch for investment to a handpicked group of potential investors, corporate partners and potential customers.
“Sprout wants to help entrepreneurs grow their start-ups from great ideas into investment-ready, early-stage companies.
“We know that many early-stage entrepreneurs find it difficult to articulate their ideas and in turn gain support from customers, stakeholders and investors.
“We have addressed this with the Sprout programme and are happy to report that our first group of eight alumni all experienced strong business growth as a result.”
AgriTrack was one of the eight companies that participated in the 2015 programme and that pitched to a broad range of investors from Auckland to Otago.
The company secured $550,000 of capital and is on track to grow sales by 80 percent year on year.
AgriTrack CEO Andrew Humphries said when they started with Sprout they had a product on the market but did not have a coherent plan for growth, talent strategy, working capital or a strong sales and distribution model.
“Those five months were the hardest I’ve worked in my life, but the support and advice has allowed us to develop all areas of our business plan and now the capital we’ve raised means we’re well-equipped to take our business to the next level.”
The specific primary production areas covered in Sprout’s definition of Agritech include agriculture, horticulture, forestry, pipfruit, viticulture and aquaculture.
Sprout is being supported and funded by a mix of public and private sector leaders in agritech and start-up investment, including Callaghan Innovation, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Massey University, Gallagher Group, NZTE, Sir Stephen Tindall’s Kiwi fund, Enterprise Angels and Manawatu Investment Group.
To register to apply for the 2016/2017 Sprout programme, go to www.sproutagritech.com/register/
The programme starts on October 6.
