Deere adds seven companies to its 2022 Startup Collaborator program
by CM Staff
The company stated that Startup Collaborator is a year-long program intended to provide flexibility for John Deere and startup companies to test technologies with customers and dealers without a formal business relationship.
MOLINE — Deere & Company has added seven companies to its 2022 Startup Collaborator program.
The company stated that John Deere launched the program in 2019 to enhance and deepen its interaction with startup companies whose technology could add value for customers.
“The startup collaborator shows that part of our investment in technology is establishing a mechanism to help external ideas and knowledge collide with ours,” said Julian Sanchez, director, emerging technology for John Deere in a statement.
“Agriculture is a domain ripe for technology pioneering, and the startup collaborator program is a way to travel that journey together with others.”
The seven companies John Deere added to the program include Burro, a company that provides people-scale robotic platforms to help farm labourers.
CropZone has also become part of the program. This company provides solutions for growers trying to control weeds and desiccate crops without residue.
Four Growers provides robotic harvesting and analytics for high-value crops – starting with greenhouse tomatoes. This company is also now part of the program.
Next, SeeDevice has also joined the program. This company provides enhanced CMOS SWIR image sensing capabilities using quantum-based photodetector technology for smart devices in automotive, biomedical, and machine vision applications.
Ucropit, a company bringing together farmers and companies to create, aggregate and share crop stories has also joined.
ViewAR has also made it into the program. This company creates augmented reality business solutions to deal with customer pain points and use cases such as indoor navigation and AR for service.
Finally, Yard Stick has also joined Startup Collaborator. This company develops instant, in situ soil carbon measurement technologies to enable gigaton/year carbon removal through agriculture.
The company stated that Startup Collaborator is a year-long program intended to provide flexibility for John Deere and startup companies to test technologies with customers and dealers without a formal business relationship. Additionally, startups also gain affiliation with and mentoring from other businesses in technology for agricultural and construction equipment.
“The expansion of this year’s collaborator program provides an opportunity for John Deere to work with this globally diverse group across a broad area of technology spaces while continuing to unlock value for our customers across multiple production systems,” said Michele Kaiser, business development manager for John Deere, in a statement.
