Biobest’s CEO Jean-Marc Vandoorne and COO Karel Bolckmans are joining ecoation’s board of directors, after announcing a $10 million investment to develop new IPM-related technologies. 

This investment follows $10M in public funding from the Canadian government and an earlier infusion of $2.5M from existing investors.  

 "This infusion of $22.5M CAD will support a successful commercial roll-out of ecoation’s cutting-edge dynamic data harvesting platform based on a combination of deep biology, computer vision, sensor technology, AI, and robotics," says ecoation CEO Saber Miresmalli.

Traditionally, a greenhouse environment is controlled by means of spot measurements of a number of parameters. IPM related information is traditionally recorded by technical “scouting” staff walking the greenhouse and taking notes.

"The ecoation human + machine technology platform takes all this to a different level: the robots and sensors deliver an incredibly fine-mazed data-matrix with unrivalled detail in time and space," says Miresmailli. "Sensors allow us to pick up early signs of stress and disease in plants and interpret these signs before they are even noticed by a human scout." 

Source: Biobest and ecoation September 3, 2021 news release