GroGuru

GroGuru provides a software as a service for strategic water management - assisting farmers in sustainable crop monitoring that saves them water, resources, and of course, extra work. Deploying over 4,000 soil sensors across over 20 crop types in the United States, GroGuru acquired $620K in revenue in 2020 alone - a huge success in a very difficult economic environment.

Meet GroGuru® : The Future of Sustainable Farming

As complicated as humans are, we have two very basic essential needs: food and water. And as we know, those vital resources are being threatened due to climate change and a growing population.

We think the best way to make things better is to start from the ground up - and that’s why we help farmers.

Using AI technology, our water management through soil monitoring assists farmers in growing more food, and saving more water.

We think the planet deserves a smart farm.

Introducing: Real-Time Data Tracking

GroGuru is continuing to stand out in the agriculture industry by signing an API access agreement with Valley Irrigation, A Valmont Company, which provides farmers with the opportunity to understand data in real-time. These devices are able to track center pivot irrigation systems, soil monitoring sites as well as weather stations which would ultimately improve crops like corn, cotton, wheat and other cereal crops. The future of this partnership is expected to bring a benefit to farmers by increasing efficiency of irrigation systems as well as being mindful of sustainability.

Too Many People, Not Enough Food and Water

Let’s look at the big picture: We have a global problem of catastrophic proportions where we simply cannot meet the basic needs of many people. And with more people every day comes more challenges.

Not to mention, farming is hard. Farmers typically run into problems with…

We believe soil monitoring for optimal water management is necessary to yield enough crops to feed our planet, but farmers tend to struggle with making practical irrigation choices. And although soil monitoring methods are out there, they tend to have some problems of their own.

Plus, water management is primarily about the management of the root zone of the crop. The tools needed to do this prior to GroGuru were only a partial answer to this massive problem.

Yielding Farmers More Crops and More Money

Our mission is to help farmers make more money by increasing crop yields and more efficiently using water and other scarce resources like labor, energy and fertilizer in a more sustainable way.

We do this by providing superior decision support tools to farmers and agronomic consultants for strategic water management.

Crops get fed water and nutrients through the root zone of the crop, inspiring us to monitor from the root zone up.

With these methods, we provide an enhanced data set combined with other data like rainfall, applied irrigation, weather forecast and crop models to give farmers additional insights about how to optimally manage water usage out in their fields irrigation.

In short, we enable farmers to better irrigate their crops - making more money while they’re at it, and acting more sustainably while they're at it, too.

A Trillion Dollar Market

If you fly over Kansas or Nebraska, this is what you will see: millions of acres of irrigated farmland. If that seems like a lot, it’s because it is. After all, the global agriculture market is $2.4 trillion annually. And the market for soil moisture monitoring is best looked at from an acreage standpoint.

According to the USDA, there are 52 million irrigated acres in the US, of which 44 million acres is annual field crops like corn, soybean, cotton, wheat, sorghum, and alfalfa.

There are 313 million total farming acres in the US and 4.2 billion acres globally.

So assuming…

• Reasonable priced reductions over time
• Reasonable deployment assumptions of solid sensors based on GroGuru’s modeling

The market, at full penetration, is $2 billion annually in the US and $20 billion globally.

Covering a Lot of Ground

Since our beginning, we’ve...

• Deployed over 4,000 sensors across over 20 crop types in various geographies in the United States.
• Established a dealer footprint that represents 6 million deployable acres.
• Achieved $620K in revenue in 2020 in a very difficult economic environment where a number of our competitors went bankrupt or were sold.

We are now on our third generation of software as service (SaaS) and our third generation of internet of things (IoT) for farming products. We have formed key strategic partnerships with market leaders in the precision agriculture space, and have many more in the queue eager to work with us.

Farmers, We Target Your Specific Needs

You might be wondering: How exactly does GroGuru provide these insights to farmers and agronomic consultants?

We do this through AI-based soil monitoring, which we call Wireless Underground System for Permanent Installation of Soil Sensors, aka GroGuru® WUGS.

Once we collect data from the root zone of the crop, we add other critical data and apply machine learning and AI in the Cloud to determine things like…

• Root growth
• Root depth
• Available moisture in the soil
• Whether the soil is more sandy or clay based
• If soil has compaction layers.

We then present this information in a simple, intuitive, farmer-friendly user interface that the farmer can access on their mobile device, tablet or computer.

The GroGuru® InSites platform works with GroGuru’s own telemetry solutions and soil moisture sensors, but also works with an impressive group of third-party sensors.

As a result of the GroGuru InSites approach, we are able to deliver nuanced and comprehensive real-time data, which is instantly actionable.

This includes:

• GPS-based Farm Scale view
• An “Irrigate by pictures” interface to visualize the root zone and soil profile
• Crop-specific irrigation templates guide users both before, and during the growing season to manage soil moisture conditions in the field.
• Alternative field telemetry solutions for perennial crops root vegetables

GroGuru WUGS is a 100% wireless underground system that can be buried below the till depth and communicates through several feet of soil wirelessly. This eliminates the need for the sensors to be annually installed and removed for seeding and harvesting, respectively, for these annual crops - making less work for the farmer that's more sustainable.

Investor Testimonials

Chris Graebe - CEO at StartupCamp, Investor at RagingBull

Denise Longley - Managing Director at Longley Capital

Matt Shekoyan - VP of Strategy at Sunkist

Ian Buddery - Advisory Board Member at GroGuru, Chairman at Maestrano

Nearly all soil moisture sensors in the market today use cables from the sensors in the ground. This requires labor-intensive annual installation and removal of the sensors, and many farmers do not want any cable-based systems around their crops during harvest. GroGuru solves this problem by eliminating these cables and enabling a permanent installation model for soil sensors.

Our breakthrough Wireless Underground System (WUGS) technology dramatically reduces the total cost of ownership, improves scalability, and gives farmers year-round data through the GroGuru app.

We additionally provide a cable-based permanent installation solution for perennial crops that offers an industry-leading price-performance and uses GroGuru soil sensor technology to measure soil moisture, salinity, and temperature.

According to the FDA, only about 10 percent of farmers in the U.S. (which is a potential $2 billion annual market alone) are using soil sensors today. Farmers that are using this technology are seeing increased crop yield and more efficient use of water and other resources, but the cost of annual replacement has been prohibitive for many. We solve that problem, giving us a unique opportunity in a massive $20 billion potential global market.

We have already deployed over 4,000 sensors across over 100 customers, and 1,000+ locations in the United States. This includes deployments on several hundred sites across over 20 crop types including alfalfa, cotton, lemons, walnuts, grapes, asparagus, green beans, blueberries, pistachios, soybeans, corn, hemp, olives, roses, raisins, cannabis, oranges, tomatoes, sorghum, and almonds.

Initial customer deployments started in 2017, and we have now deployed in several key geographies across the US.

Historically, we sold hardware and had a companion SaaS service. However, we’ve recently moved hardware customers to an operating lease subscription model, offering a standalone SaaS platform that works with third party hardware providers.

GroGuru is already actively providing results for farmers around the US. And their feedback says it all:

We see ourselves as the hardware and irrigation system’s ‘agonistic player’ in the strategic water management space within the next five years.

We feel that we are at the very early stages of what is expected to be a multi-decades long growth market opportunity - expecting to surpass one million deployed acres within the planning cycle of the company.

Seasoned Leaders

Our team has the right business acumen, domain expertise, and technical knowledge to win in this market. We also have a strategy of developing strategic and dealer partnerships that will allow us to leverage the best in class portions of the total solution from ecosystem partners.

GroGuru’s Farmer Advisory Board Members:

Kevin Wright, AFM

Chief Operating Officer at Hancock Natural Resource Group 

Grant Norwood

Owner, Norwood Farms

Henry County, Tennessee 

Matt Shekoyan

Former CFO, Wonderful Citrus 

Mike Jarrard

Former President of Mann Packing

Former Chairman of the Western Growers Association 

Harold Grall

Owner, Hasta Farms

Board Member and former President, North Plains Groundwater Conservation District

A Major Growth Opportunity

We have a unique solution to a significant problem in what is expected to be a massive and rapidly growing market. We believe we are paving the way to strategic water irrigation management to help farmers heal our planet one acre at a time.

We differentiate ourselves over time by…

• Continuing to protect our intellectual property
• Building strategic partnerships with key ecosystem partners
• Driving significant profitability as we grow

Will you join us on our journey? Watch your investment “grow” with us while helping to combat a global crisis.