Aerobotics is a South African agtech company with a smart scouting platform to identify pests and diseases in tree crops. In the last 24 months, Aerobotics captured ~20% of South Africa's citrus market and in the last six months, ~40% of its macadamia market.

The company was founded by James Paterson (CEO) and Benji Meltzer (CTO) who first met while studying robotics in undergrad. James, a 10th generation farmer, went on to MIT for a Master in Aeronautics and Astronautics, while Benji did a Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London before joining Uber as a data scientist. In early 2014, James and Benji teamed back up when they realized the abundance of data that could be captured through satellite and drone imagery and then analyzed at scale through machine learning. Since then they've been joined by Andrew Burdock (COO), who headed Tyco ADT’s coastal branches in South Africa leading a sales and support team of over 400 people; and Timothy Willis (CFO) who previously led Strategy & Analytics for Uber’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Central Operations Team.

Why We Invested

• Technically and commercially balanced (MIT, Uber, ADT, selected for Google Launchpad)
• Product-driven by two very strong founders with deep technical backgrounds
• CEO comes from a 10th generation farming family
• Focused high-value crops where growers have more margin for technology
• Tremendous traction in their local market (20% of S.A. citrus, 40% of S.A. macadamia)
• Disease monitoring gives Aerobotics strong network effects and encourages word-of-mouth sales
• Showing evidence they're closing in on product market fit
• Team has demonstrated they can do a lot with very little

Pest & Disease Detection Platform

Company Presentation