Alloy 2024 featured several sessions detailing the ongoing transformation taking place in multiple industries, including the energy, healthcare, and defense sectors. One such session was our panel discussion featuring a trio of food and agriculture experts and entrepreneurs moderated by AgriNovus Indiana CEO Mitch Frazier.

Gripp CEO and Co-founder Tracey Wiedmeyer, Athian CPO Kendra Tolley, and Make Hay CEO and Co-founder Scott Nelson joined Mitch on stage to talk about trends shaping the ag space and how their startups — all High Alpha Innovation portfolio companies — are solving big problems facing AgriFood value chain members.

Key Takeaways

• Kendra explained how Athian is the first carbon-insetting marketplace for livestock industry, benefiting both farmers (who get a financial incentive to modernize on-farm practices) and corporations (which can achieve their Scope 3 emissions targets and sustainability goals) and, ultimately, contributing to a greener environment.

• Tracey detailed how Gripp prevents potentially costly downtime for growers, producers, and ranchers without the use of expensive hardware sensors. The solution provides real-time insights into equipment failure and alerts ag retailers when machines go down so they can repair them ASAP and keep operations running smoothly.

• Scott shared how Make Hay provides a much-needed, secondary revenue stream for farmers. Growers and producers shoot videos of their day-to-day work, which food brands can then secure through a subscription, use in marketing content and, in turn, use to be more transparent with consumers about the origins of their food.

Discover more insights from the engaging Alloy conversation by watching the entire AgTech panel discussion below.

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Transcript

Mitch Frazier: Well, good afternoon, Alloy. Yeah. A little bit of energy on a Tuesday afternoon. My name's Mitch Frazier. CEO of an organization called AgriNovus, and my objective, our collective objective this afternoon is pretty simple: We want to make sure that everyone here, whether you're a founder, whether you're an investor, whether you're a corporate, whether you're an academic institution, that you realize that you have a direct connection to the people that are on the stage and a connection to this economy, this food and ag economy.

It's the only economy in the world that touches every person on the planet. And when you begin to look at why this is so important, you begin to see things that, well, have happened throughout history. Elliott did an amazing job this morning of kicking us off and looking back at what's been to look forward to what's ahead.

I call your attention to Alfred Lewis. He's a 20th-century journalist. Alfred put it so poignant. He said mankind is nine meals away from anarchy. And you begin to think of why conversations, why investments, why innovations in ag, ag bioscience, ag tech are so important. I think it puts it into beautiful focus and as we are.

Just 23 years and a day away from the anniversary of the most significant terrorist attack on American soil I just I want to put this in a perspective of why this conversation matters and we're joined today by three incredible incredible entrepreneurs — people who bring diverse backgrounds who have found this passion this love this calling for what is ag and I think as we look at, Tracey, I'm going to start with you, and as we look at this economy, this ag economy we're in, this is a really tough economy in current economics.

Net farm income's down again this year, corn prices hit their four year low here in Q3. When you look at this austerity that is in ag, give us just a quick flyover of how you're seeing the market, how you're tackling it. But, more importantly, why you're so bullish on the opportunity. 

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Yes, I think the first thing that, that is going on in ag is this idea that food as health.

You know, we talked a little bit about that earlier today. You know, yields have been increasing for the last, you know, 20, 30 years. But I wouldn't, you know, everyone's not saying that the health of the country has followed that trajectory. You know, it's been inversely correlated. And so maybe nutrient density.

Maybe soil health should be the goal, and what would it look like to have that manifest its way through ag? So that's one core thing that I see going on a lot. The second is consolidation. You know, it's go big or go home. I think there's 200, 000 less farmers, according to the last census, farming roughly the same area.

And then you see, you know, like you said, lower crop prices, is this apocalypse happening for the next four or five, six years? And so the first two are very capital intensive changes that will happen. And the third one is a little bit more on sustainability, which is, how do you squeeze more income out of the farm?

Knowing that crop prices are depressed. And what does that look like? 

Mitch Frazier: And Scott, I want to come to you as we talk about sustainability. I think this is a beautiful parallel. You have, your career is one that's just fascinating. A guy who has built a career in consumer brands was the guy who brought this storytelling of ag, the connectedness that we just talked to, the sustainability of ag, you brought it to our phones, our phones, Our TV screens everywhere is VP of marketing for Panera.

Now you're leading an innovation company focused on really that content piece. How are you thinking about sustainability and ag, and how does this connect to what you're doing and make? 

Scott Nelson: Yeah, great. No, thanks, Mitch. Does everyone in the room know that he's got the number one podcast in agriculture? Oh, I knew the number two or three, but number one, it's a fascinating 

Mitch Frazier: Available now on an Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

Scott Nelson: Wherever you get your podcasts. Sorry, anyhow, you know, to answer your question, I think where I come from is this idea of transparency and knowing where your food comes from is important, knowing what the ingredients are in your body, what you're putting into your body is important.

And where they come from is important. So, we were ahead of the curve a little bit at Panera back in 2017 when we were the first to really look at food transparency at large. Why? Because consumers wanted to know that information. Now we, here we are years later, And it is no longer a nice to have, it's table stakes.

So you have the QSRs, you have the food service industry, you have the CPGs, you have all these different kind of outlets and companies and organizations that are trying to meet this demand from the consumer that wants to know more about their food. 

Mitch Frazier: And Kendra, you have built a business with Paul and the team at Athian on this concept of sustainability, but you are not a sustainability guru. You're a banker turned FinTech innovator turned animal health expert. Give us your perspective on sustainability, the opportunity you see and. 

Kendra Tolley: Yeah, well, first I did not see that coming from my career trajectory at all. Really, so when I think about where animal tech is or animal AgTech is where sustainability is and how all of that comes together.

What we're really trying to achieve at Athian is making sure that we are helping the producer win by finding new revenue opportunities and helping the value chain itself. Those end of the value chain players like Mars or Nestle or Danone or Walmart or Costco really achieve their goals. And how often do you get to be in an industry that actually allows everyone that's involved to win?

So, when you're having that conversation with producers, when you're having that conversation with the end of the value chain, what you're really able to say to them is, here, we're helping you solve your problems, but we're helping you do it in a way that's beneficial to the farmer.

It's an entirely new revenue stream for them. The things that they're already doing on-farm that are better for the environment, we're finding a new revenue stream to pay them, rightly so, for that activity. Also, the end of the value chain, those big corporate companies that have set these incredibly aggressive goals on reducing the amount of carbon in the production of their products, we're helping them achieve those goals as well.

So when you think about what impact that has on the environment, on the economy, on the industry as a whole, it's positive after positive after positive.

Mitch Frazier: I'm so glad you brought this up. And when you look at maybe the first two or three chapters of ag tech, food tech, ag, bioscience, and I think they're investors here who have put money to work in that space.

I think we've seen a lot of challenges when we think about what are we optimizing for and what each of you have done. And feel free, whoever wants to jump in here is. Driving value back to the farm gate. This idea that it can't just be a neat map or a novel solution for content. This is about how do you drive or automation and making sure that we're optimizing equipment use.

This has to be about how do I generate net farm income, back to the farmer, back to the rancher every day. 

Kendra Tolley: Yeah, I'll start. So, I did not come from an agricultural background. I didn't come from sustainability. I'm FinTech and banking, actually. So, as I started this role, I really spent a lot of time Talking to producers.

What is it that was important to them? What is it that drives value on their farm? What is it that would keep them, um, in business day after day after day? And really have a personal story around this. My brother has a small cow calf operation. He has about 40 head of cattle. 40 acres of land, and he's really, really focused on sustainability.

And he doesn't do it really because he's worried about climate change. In reality, he's not. He does it because he thinks it's the right thing for his farm, the right thing for his family, and he wants to make sure that that farm is there for this, his generation, the next generation, the generation after that.

And I heard that story repeated over and over and over again to all the producers that I talked to. It's really a way of life, it's a culture for them, and they want to be able to make sure that they're doing the right thing for generations to come. So how do we find a way to really bring value back to that producer by also solving a problem for the big question?

Corporates that are using their products to, you know, bring products to us, the consumer. And so really looking for ways to narrow in on how do we get a return on investment? How do we pay the producer for doing things in a more sustainable way? Was really the goal of what we're trying to achieve and really got people interested.

Scott Nelson: I think from our end, so I've been doing content creation for 20 plus years. I've been doing influencer marketing for 20 plus years. And I've seen how it's kind of changed. And I also know that if you have a mobile phone, and you know how to use the camera on it, guess what that makes you? That makes you a content creator, whether you like it or not.

I also think, having done this for a little bit, that, as I've gotten to know farmers, farmers, in some sense, to me, are actually the original influencers. Not only because of what they do and what their craft means for the world, but just that they are very creative and innovative souls themselves. So, why not just have them use their phone for a couple minutes a day to make that secondary income stream without them leaving the farm?

So, what we're trying to do at Make Hay, one of the things, is just to make digital storytelling a a part of the daily farm operation. If you have five minutes on autopilot on your John Deere, you can create content that you might be able to monetize. So, very different way than maybe these two folks are looking at it, but we're all in it for the same reasons.

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Yeah, and for us, sustainability is, you know, climate's important, food is important, but it's, it's really how do you optimize the things that the farmer's already paying for. on a daily basis, right? So we led this with, you know, food is health and get bigger or go home. Those are capital intensive things for the farmer.

They're already paying operators to leverage their equipment every day. Can you create an easy way for those operators to maintain the equipment versus some of the non-ag software that we see? So many times we hear the farmer say if I bring your software in, do I have to hire a brand new person to learn how to use it to try to, you know, be that information bottleneck?

And it's a non-starter. And so walking the farm gate is so important just to understand, live a day in their life to figure out the solutions that are going to matter that actually reduce the time that they spend maintaining the stuff that they own versus adding to it. 

Mitch Frazier: Austerity is always hard, but austerity creates opportunity.

Look, everyone that's in here, everyone that's a part of Alloy has made a pivot. Each of you have made pivots along the way. Two of you were inspired by or connected into the High Alpha Innovation Network through Purdue University. One through a big corporate, Elanco. Maybe give us just a flyover of what the biggest pivot you've made to date has been and what's that led to?

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Yeah, I think for us the the early pivot we made is the idea that that you was incubated out of Purdue basically Was like Uber for mechanics on the farm with food safety and when we went and talked to the farmers You know, we we figured out and what they were telling us was Yeah, that, that's a problem that exists, but I would never have anybody come to my farm that I've never met before, right?

So that's just kind of a non-starter, but here's what's not working. Is there no way to manage my equipment and the things that I own that make me successful in one place, right? There's, an app for your Chevys, for your John Deeres, for your housing, for your grain, for this and that. And somebody mentioned it earlier today that there's such an exhaustion over healthcare of having point solutions.

And to the farmer, the farmer just says, I'm not even going to bother learning those. I'll stay on paper. I'll use WhatsApp. I'll use iCloud and Gmail to manage my operations. Something no corporate business would do today. You can't bring your own email to work when you take a new job. But that's what happens in farming.

And so we've connected those dots and said, Hey, if we can give you something that's familiar, right, chat. Text, video, audio, the things that you use today, and centralize it on the farm. That information, that critical tribal knowledge we call it, stays on the farm for you to plan better and run a better operation.

Scott, your pivot? 

Scott Nelson: Yeah, no pivot yet. We're still fairly young, but, I will, well, actually, yes. So, go-to-market, more so. I guess I'll speak, I'll skip to your possibly next question. But, when we first were looking at it, we're like, yeah, we're going big. We're going General Mills, we're going PepsiCo, we're going Frito Lay.

Why? Because they have marketing budgets of 800 million to 2 billion to 3 billion. So they have a lot of money. We're 50, 000 a month to subscribe to a platform where they get authentic, trusted content from the farmers in their supply chain. You know, that's a drop in the bucket. However, as we've soon kind of just navigated, why not start with the smaller companies, right?

And start out with the smaller CPGs. Don't go straight to the top. Still explore them and chase them and talk to them as we are. But our first two pilot partners, one is the Indiana Farm Bureau. Why? Just to get access to farmers and having them create content on our platform. But then given Purdue, of course, but then also like we're going to be working with the world's first bee vaccine called Dalan Animal Health, which is fascinating.

I didn't think we were going to have beekeepers on our platform, but we do. So yeah, we kind of went a completely different direction as it relates to go-to-market. So I guess that's our pivot, Mitch, if you will. 

Mitch Frazier: And Kendra, I, I know this story, but I, I love it. You've got to share this. 

Kendra Tolley: The Cattleworx story?

Mitch Frazier: Let's do it. 

Kendra Tolley: Okay. So, as the company evolved from an idea from Elanco around, how do you quantify the impact of practice changes for a farm as it relates to cattle? to sustainability. And so the idea originally was around how do we bring that tool to farmers? How can they better understand their carbon footprint?

How do we get that then in the hands of the people who are, you know, trying to influence that, that carbon footprint was the original idea. Paul Meyer, our CEO, brilliant, came in and looked at this and he was like, you know that is a great problem to solve, but really one of the bigger problems we need to solve is how do we get.

funds back to that producer to do these sustainable practices. Let's not just measure what they're already doing or what they could do, but how do we get funds back to them to actually change it? And so it really changed from being a platform that quantifies the impact of those on farm changes to a tool that creates financial incentives, actual assets.

Based on the work that producers are doing on-farm to be sold to their value chain partners so that there's an additional revenue stream for those producers. So really, the reason I joined, Athian was because this really looks like a FinTech platform, which is what I did in my past life, was build a FinTech platform and really help, banks automate very manual paper-based processes in a highly regulated environment.

And what, you know, those things sound a lot alike, so we're looking at solving this problem in a way that is just completely different from the original idea. 

Mitch Frazier: All of you have either raised capital, are raising capital, will soon raise capital. I'm gonna guess there's some folks here in the audience.

They're probably in the same, same bucket. You know, one of the challenges we've seen with ag tech at large is customer acquisition costs. A couple of you have mentioned this idea of you can't just go to the farm gate and assume that people are going to answer and want to talk with you. Talk a little bit about how this current fundraising environment has been and maybe some of the things you've had to change, whether it be customer acquisition, go to market, whatever it may be, that has made you more competitive and actually made the company stronger.

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Yeah, I think for us, the, the shift was understanding how big the network effect is in farming, you know, the, there's so many pockets in ag because it's so local where when you ask a farmer how they buy software, it's like, ‘Well, there's this one canary, his name's Jimmy in the community. If Jimmy does it, we do it.’ You see that in just about every local community.

So you have to go find those influencers on the local level and make sure that you're understanding, you know, what fits their need, how to, how to make that technology work, how to sell in it. And we've done that, you know, quite successfully, but, that network effect, the trusted partners, agronomists, seed sellers, you know, your irrigation guy.

It's been important to just coddle those relationships and bring them in. 

Mitch Frazier: Yeah, I think this idea of trusted advisor is often used when people talk about software specifically. There are few people who can actually darken the door of a farmer and the farmer will actually open it. Scott, you've had this as well.

Some of the reactions you've had from venture, and maybe some of the evolutions you've had to make. 

Scott Nelson: I think, you know, what we're trying to do here is a little bit different than what people have seen. Again, you know, you look at Fortune 100, Fortune 500 marketing departments, and I've been a part of them.

There's lots of waste on a daily basis in terms of hours spent on trying to create the right content, back and forth with agencies, all of that jazz. There's just a tremendous amount of waste when it comes to creating content in today's world. So, for us to kind of take that. And then try to come up with a very different unique niche solution again.

Farmers as content creators, creating content for the brands that they work with, or don't work with is somewhat different. So I guess we're getting some really good reactions from the investment community just because of not only our mission. But also this idea of just trying to become and create a more transparent supply chain in a very different way.

Mitch Frazier: And driving value back to the farmer. Value is in dollars, to be real, to be, to be really, really clear. Kendra, any reaction from Venture that you think would be helpful? 

Kendra Tolley: Well, so one of the things that's really helpful for us from a go to market perspective, actually if I step back and I think about the problem that we're trying to solve we're not just trying to reach a few producers here and there that are doing a few things that are better for the environment.

If you look at the scale of the problem that we're trying to tackle in the U.S. alone and just in the beef industry, in the dairy industry, it's over 700,000 producers. If you extend that out to soybean, corn, wheat farmers, I mean, that's Millions of producers. If you take that globally, which we are looking at this on a global scale, you need to solve that problem for millions and millions of individual farmers that are, that are daily working on their farm.

And how do you influence them and how do you go to market? And I would echo what Tracey's saying. One of the most important things for us to be able to do is to get the buy-in of those trusted advisors. And one of the things that's been very helpful for us as a startup and partnering with a company like Elanco is that they have that.

Salesforce on the ground. They have those individuals that are at that farm on a daily basis. They've built those relationships over years and years and years and for them to go in and say to their customers, you should look at Athian. You should do business with them. It's enormous. But it's the fact that we're working with a team that has this enormous amount of credibility it gives us and allows us to really tackle the problem.

Because for us, it's really all about scale. It's all about efficiency. And there's absolutely no way that we can get to the number of producers we need to get to without that sort of a relationship. 

Scott Nelson: The only thing that I'll add, a little shout out to Purdue University is, again, this access to the farm gate.

Coming out of Purdue, and I'm sure you've seen it as well, they have a very big network effect. They have a very good community, and just overall, Knowledge base around producers and producers will typically respond to your email when they see purdue. edu on it So that alone from my perspective coming out of dial ventures has has helped a lot 

Mitch Frazier: I think this affirmation whether it be big co affirmation whether it be tier-one university affirmation powerful in terms of your go to market, but also in terms of your ability just to scale quickly.

And I think a testament to the model that high off innovation is built. I want to maybe dive deep into one topic that we started with. And this is the only economy in the world. That touches every person on the planet at the end of the end of this value chain is someone being able to eat to be really, really clear is you build your teams as you advance your innovations.

How is that becoming a lightning rod, becoming a force that gives you the ability to hire the right people, go faster and get things done? 

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Yeah, I think for us, I mean, there's. There's nothing like walking. We talked about the corn fog when you wake up in the morning. There's nothing like putting your boots on, shaking a farmer's hand, and going right to the top of that food chain every, every single day.

It's galvanizing. We take our employees out to set up customers, whether they were an ag or not, they all get a chance to, you know, to walk the field and, and put a pair of boots on. And it just is a galvanizing effect knowing that, that corn is going to be in the Corn Flakes or the Pop Secret or, or whatever.

What, whatever's in the grocery store, and then you think about holistically, how do we create nutrient dense food and care about the soil and the soil health? And when you see all that come together, you know, there's a short-circuit effect of, of having everybody in the same direction, immediate impact, you know, gradual changes that then come on suddenly.

And it's really magic to be a part of. 

Scott Nelson: Yeah, I would say, I've always seen this T-shirt, ‘No farmers, no food.’ And I thought it was interesting, you know, as a brand person, I'm like, that's just an amazing statement. But until you actually get into agriculture, you really don't know what that means.

And so that's why we created Make Hay. We want to help kind of empower the next generation of farmers. We want to keep the current farmers on their land. Figure out different ways for them to not only tell them stories, but actually get secondary rev revenue into their pockets. So we're building a very mission-based company around the roots of agriculture here at Make Hay, which hopefully will inspire, you know, our teams and everyone that we touch.

Kendra Tolley: So I come from FinTech. So most of my network is in the FinTech space. And, um, let me just tell you the difference between going to a meeting, you're sitting around a table of bankers, and then going to a meeting and sitting around a table of farmers. The difference is night and day.

I'm not saying that farmers don't give us a hard time. They will beat us up, but they absolutely are coming from a place of, ‘I have an honest problem to solve and I want to know whether or not you can solve it.’ Sometimes, the bankers I dealt with not quite as transparent about the problem they're trying to solve.

So it's a different way to approach the problem. But when I'm recruiting people to come work with us and we brought teams together to work with us, you know, Paul and I both bringing them from our networks, but being able to understand. where they've been before and then be able to say you're going to be working with people who are solving a real tangible problem.

So if you're looking at that from the producer perspective for those individuals that are on the ground talking to producers on a day to day basis. But also if you think about it from the other perspective. Okay. We're talking about Tillamook ice cream and cheese, which, you know, who doesn't not want to talk about Tillamook ice cream and cheese?

We're talking about Cheez-Its and all of your favorite snacks. These are real tangible things that are part of your everyday life. And you're helping those companies that build those iconic brands, those iconic products.

Do better for the environment, or do better for those producers, do better about their value chain, and we absolutely have no problem having people stand in line wanting to join us and be part of that mission It's it's incredibly exciting and the best place to be in if you're trying to recruit people 

Mitch Frazier: All right, team.

We have 40 seconds left, the red clock says, so lightning round real quick. We started with we want everyone here to feel like they are connected to this economy that everyone here is connected to this. This is about transformation. What's the one thing that everyone here in this audience can do to make the transformation in agriculture actual? Tracey?

Tracey Wiedmeyer: Care about where your food comes from. 

Scott Nelson: Well, I was going to say that, so yeah, I think you need to know where your food comes from. 

Kendra Tolley: Well, I could say that too. You know where your food comes from. But also, think about how important it is for your farmers to be able to sustain their businesses. It's crucial or we won't have any food. 

Scott Nelson: And I guess I would just actually have a different answer than Tracey. But I would demand more from the brands that you buy from. You have a right to know where those products are coming from, who's making them, where the ingredients are. You have a right to know. Demand more. 

‍Mitch Frazier: They are doing incredible work. Please help me thank Tracey, Scott, and Kendra.