Amsterdam-based ‘Fitbit for cows’ Connecterra got a 1.8 million dollar (1.6 million euro) seed investment from a diverse group of investors led by UK incubator Breed Reply.
Also, the UAE based fund MENA Ventures (MVI), Japan based DeNA Co Ltd, and angel investor Elias Tabet took part in this round, the startup said in a release.
The money will be used to further develop Connecterra’s machine learning platform for ‘real time cattle analytics’, and provide the company with the necessary funding to grow their team and accelerate the trial and delivery of their product to the market.
Productive farms
“What happens when you put a sensor on a cow?”, founder Yasir Khokhar wondered when starting his business. “There are a lot of hardware and big data-startups”, he said in a previous interview with StartupJuncture. “But no one really makes sense of the data. Learning about the cattle’s behaviour helps to create a smarter and more productive farm.”
Global expansion?
Khokhar aimed to raise 2.1 million euro during the 2015 Web Summit in Dublin. Which pitch competition he won, by the way. Now, after the pilot in Leeuwarden, we think it’s time for Connecterra to think global. Just think of the environmental impact of just a little increase in effectiveness of cattle management worldwide.
Image: Connecterra