The Ames-based autonomous farming platform Smart Ag has been acquired by Raven Industries, a Sioux Falls-based industrial company with the precision agriculture division Raven Applied Technology. The acquisition falls under the newly-established Raven Autonomy, the company’s strategic growth platform for autonomous agriculture solutions announced on Oct. 28. Smart Ag launched in 2015 and is most […]
SwineTech, a Cedar Rapids-based agtech startup designing products to protect piglets from accidental crushing by their mothers, received October’s Business of the Month award by America’s SBDC Iowa. SwineTech has won multiple awards from MIT, the American Farm Bureau and the Investors Hall of Fame; co-founders Matthew Rooda and Abraham Espinoza have also been recognized […]
Sundeep Vani joined Iowa State University in the newly-created role of chief technology officer for biobased products, the university has announced. As CTO, Vani will work with Biobased Product platform lead Brent Shanks and the Iowa Innovation Corp. to identify promising emerging technologies and develop them into commercial products. Vani has spent the last two […]
Coralville-based IDx Technologies has appointed former LabCorp executive Seth Rainford as its new president of global markets, the Corridor Business Journal reports. Rainford will be charged with expanding market opportunities and driving operational excellence at IDx, which last April received clearance from the FDA for the first autonomous AI diagnostic system in any field of medicine. […]
Kimle Aquaculture LLC received a $100,000 investment through the Wellmark Venture Capital Fund and an additional $100,000 Demonstration Fund loan from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, reports the Iowa State University Startup Factory. Iowa-based Kimle Aquaculture was a cohort six member of the ISU Startup Factory developing new solutions for indoor fish production to lower […]
Valentine Food Co., based in Indianola, is launching the Iowa Market, a marketing and distribution division supporting small food product vendors with a national platform to promote and sell through. The newly launched online market has about 12 brands for sale. The market is designed to support small vendors without the burden of delivering their own […]
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator will host its third Demonstration Day at the Des Moines Embassy Club Oct. 15 in conjunction with the World Food Prize and 2019 Borlaug Dialogue and International Symposium. Doors open at 5 p.m. and presentations will begin at 5:30 p.m. More than 120 volunteer mentors worked with the accelerator’s four agtech […]
KemPharm, a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Coralville, entered a new licensing agreement with an affiliate of Gurnet Point Capital (GPC), a private investment firm focused on the life sciences and medtech sectors, reports the Corridor Business Journal. The agreement provides GPC’s affiliate with an exclusive worldwide license to develop, manufacture and commercialize KemPharm’s product candidates […]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture recently granted a three-year, $499,845 grant to a multidisciplinary team of Iowa State University scientists studying soybean stressors. The team, led by adjunct assistant professor of agronomy Arti Singh, is developing machine learning technology that could automate the ability of farmers to diagnose a […]
Ames Seed Capital announced a $100,000 investment into the veterinary startup VetMeasure, Inc. VetMeasure, based in Ames, created the animal heart monitoring device MeasureON! Harness, allowing veterinarians to monitor a pet’s health remotely. The harness sends collected data to a mobile and web application available for the vets to view; when the dog’s metrics reach […]