Robee / Crossbee

More than 80% of crops require insect pollination, and while there are over 20,000 wild bee species, that each pollinates specific crops, growers can no longer rely on the dwindling wild bee pollination to meet growing global food demands. As a result, less effective general pollinators are often introduced, (normally honey bees) to crop fields. This practice hampers agricultural productivity and quality, while also posing a threat to indigenous wild bees who are forced to compete with honey bees for food and are exposed to new diseases.

Our goal is to provide a highly efficient and easy-to-use mechanized pollinator that empowers growers to effectively manage and attain control over the entire pollination process without exploiting bees.

BloomX’s artificial intelligence utilizes agronomical know-how with a variety of environmental data points such as plant fertility parameters, temperature and pollen receptiveness to pinpoint the optimal window for pollination. Simultaneously, we have developed crop-specific hardware devices to replicate natural pollination. To effectively pollinate blueberries for instance, we mimic the ‘buzz-pollination’ technique done naturally by bumblebees, using electric vehicles with mechanical arms to navigate between two rows of plants and vibrate their stems. Pollen then detaches and lands on flowers’ stigmas to pollinate them. Similarly, we have developed a ‘Collector Device’ for avocado trees with an electrostatic charge that strokes the perimeter of one avocado variety to release its sticky pollen grains. These grains are gathered onto a reusable frame which are then transmitted to a different variety of avocados in the same way that natural cross-pollination occurs. These technologies will later be modified for other crops that can benefit from them. 

Our solutions will address crops that have pollination deficiencies, initially targeting the avocado($16B), blueberry($5B), tomatoes ($100B), and cocoa ($11B) markets.

Our team (15 employees) combines the right mix between agronomical, technical and business know-how. 
Founders - Thai Sade, Founder & CEO; an entrepreneur with business management, operations, and sales experience. B.A in Sustainability & Government and a graduate of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at IDC Herzliya. Ido Senesh, Founder & VP R&D, is a Software Engineer with vast experience in web development and big data from both the 8200 and the high-tech industry. BSc in computer science from the Technion. Avi Keren, Founder & CTO, a system engineer with vast experience in complex aviation systems at the Israeli Air Force, and a software developer. BSc in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion. 
Key Manamegmtn team - Emily Speiser (VP Marketing), Samuel Dresel (VP Sales), Elad Hever (COO). 
Key Employees - Dan Eliash (product design), Yarden Saad (mechanical designer), Erez Giat (head of mechanical design) Niv Kalmi (head of agronomy), Yahel Bar (technical field operation), Anat Dadia(technical field operation), Maira Galvao (full stack engineer), Eliran Yefet (QA), Lion Preiger (electronics engineer). 
Professional Advisory board  - Prof. Rafi Stern; Pollination researcher at Migal Institute for agricultural research and the head of the biotechnology department in Tel-Hai College in Israel, Ph.D. Gad Ish Am; Pollen ecology and plant ecology, Jonathan Henen; Ag-tech expert, former CTO of ADAMA and technology scouter at Trendlines, Ph.D. Gal Yarden; scientist, Ag-tech entrepreneur and investor, Ph.D. Inbar Maimon Pomernachik - biotechnology, biology and due-diligence expert, Ph.D. Ouzi Amouyal; Expert in genetics and plant health. 

10 Leading agriculture corporates from Latam's blueberry and avocado markets (Peru, Mexico, Colombia), the US, Israel, and South Africa. 

Solve provides a platform for individuals/teams to showcase their ventures and innovations and receive support (funding, strategy, business development and more) to help bring those to fruition.

As a company, we are passionate about solving global challenges and want to be part of a community of innovators working towards this goal. We see Solve as an opportunity to collaborate with diverse groups of people from different backgrounds, disciplines, and sectors to grow better our innovative solutions into new markets. 

The innovation in our solution was inspired by nature. Our biomimicking approach to predicting the right time to pollinate & mechanical application that mimics the natural pollination process offer a unique approach to problem-solving that draws on millions of years of evolution and adaptation. 

We believe we have developed a scaleable, affordable, and simple solution that is done naturally with high impact and outcomes.

By empowering growers to produce greater yields with less land, and alleviating the need to introduce non-native pollinating insects, BloomX lowers the environmental footprint of crop production. We are trying to build a pollination platform that will allow growers to control the pollination process, in crops where insets are ineffective. In the coming years in avocados & blueberries and later into greenhouses, other trees such as almonds, apples, coffee and cocoa.

12. Responsible consumption and production: "A growing global population with deteriorating natural resources and increased urbanization means more people to feed with less water, farmland, and rural labor" (FAO - http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/goals/goal-12/en/). Using our device will enable growers to produce more with less land, which creates a better and an easiest alternative for them to increase their revenue.

13. Climate action: "Food production threatens to be the greatest casualty of climate change, but sustainable agriculture can be part of the solution" (FAO- http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/goals/goal-). We can see in this video - 13/en/ - an example of the urgency we need to use our crop production land. Our solution can be a win-win solution for Agri-corporates/growers to increase revenue by using their current lands more efficiently.

More than 80% of crops require insect pollination, and while there are over 20,000 wild bee species, that each pollinates specific crops, growers can no longer rely on the dwindling wild bee pollination to meet growing global food demands. As a result, less effective general pollinators are often introduced, (normally honey bees) to crop fields. This practice hampers agricultural productivity and quality, while also posing a threat to indigenous wild bees who are forced to compete with honey bees for food and are exposed to new diseases.

Our vision is to provide data-driven artificial pollination solutions that will manage and optimize growers' yields, in crops where insects are ineffective, by mimicking the natural pollination process and leveraging it through technology. Our solutions will address crops that have pollination deficiencies, initially targeting the avocado($16B), blueberry($5B), tomatoes ($100B), and cocoa ($11B) markets.

BloomX’s artificial intelligence utilizes agronomical know-how with a variety of environmental data points such as plant fertility parameters, temperature and pollen receptiveness to pinpoint the optimal window for pollination. Simultaneously, we have developed crop-specific hardware devices to replicate natural pollination. To effectively pollinate blueberries for instance, we mimic the ‘buzz-pollination’ technique done naturally by bumblebees, using electric vehicles with mechanical arms to navigate between two rows of plants and vibrate their stems. Pollen then detaches and lands on flowers’ stigmas to pollinate them. Similarly, we have developed a ‘Collector Device’ for avocado trees with an electrostatic charge that strokes the perimeter of one avocado variety to release its sticky pollen grains. These grains are gathered onto a reusable frame which are then transmitted to a different variety of avocados in the same way that natural cross-pollination occurs. These technologies will later be modified for other crops that can benefit from them. 

In the last few years, we've validated our technology in avocados and blueberries with growers, from small-scale to large-scale field trials, demonstrating up to 30% yield increase and affecting the quality of the fruits. That led us in 2022 for the first year of revenues, gaining $350K. In 2023 we are scaling our activity, targeting $1.5M in revenues. 

1/3 of our company are women (as well in our management team). Our goal is to have equal diversity between women to men (hopefully after raising our next funding round in 2023/2024).

We sell pollination services that include: our machines, dashboard (to predict the right time to pollinate +managing the operation), agronomical know-how, and technical support priced per hectare. $1,000 per hectare for avocados. $1,300 per hectare for blueberries.  

Go-to-market:
1.Through distributors that will provide the service in related geographies
2.Direct sales to large growers

We are planning to raise our next $25M round, which hopefully will be the last round, in 2023/2024 which will lead us to a cash positive point at the end of 2025/begging of 2026. 

Up until now we've raised $7M ($6M in equity + $1M grant from the Israeli Innovation Authority) to support our preliminary validation phase and later to build our foundation to scale- production process, initial sales and distribution, relocating to a new site in Israel, key employees and many other processes we've been working on in the last 4 years to build our company.