After a record-breaking 251 startups from 53 countries applied to be part of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, the class of 2019 has been selected to work with Alltech and Dogpatch Labs to accelerate their business development. This year’s applicants have already raised over $143 million, with 135 startups disclosing funding.
Now in its third year, The Pearse Lyons Accelerator was the brainchild of the late Dr. Pearse Lyons, who founded Alltech, an animal nutrition company, in the early 1980s in his garage with just $10,000.
“Through The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, we carry on my father’s legacy, his entrepreneurial spirit and his desire to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs to contribute to a planet of plenty,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech.
The participants, which hail from Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, will also have the opportunity to present on the mainstage at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Now in its 35th year, the annual international conference will be held in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, from May 19–21 and will welcome more than 4,000 agriculture industry leaders from over 70 countries.
“Our class of 2019 startups focus on all aspects of agriculture, including animal welfare, meat quality, crop health, and increased productivity,” said Lyons. “The final group of startups reflect the full scope of Alltech’s global operations, and we believe that their technologies can help make both Alltech and our customers more sustainable, profitable and innovative.”
The participants represent a wide variety of transformative agricultural innovations.
The Pearse Lyons Accelerator: 2019 class
- SomaDetect (Canada): In-line sensor that measures every critical indicator of dairy quality (fat, protein, somatic cell count, progesterone and antibiotics) from every cow at every milking.
- Higher Steaks (United Kingdom): Using state-of-the-art cell culture techniques, a small sample of cells from an animal will be expanded by feeding these cells. When these cells have grown, they become the desired meat product.
- SwineTech (United States): SwineTech is the world’s leading solution to reduce piglet crushing and pre-weaning mortality, and also for monitoring sow health.
- Breedr (United Kingdom): The world’s first app for livestock farmers that uses shared data to optimize yield, quality and profitability.
- Biome Makers (United States): Measuring crop health and functional biodiversity by using DNA sequencing and intelligent computing.
- Global Resonance (United Kingdom): Bringing real-time data from the start to the end of the food supply chain directly into business systems.
- FarmCloud (Portugal): Allows plug-and-play integration with climate and feeding controllers from a wide range of manufacturers.
- Terra NutriTECH (Ireland): Adding precise amounts of feed supplements into the water systems on farms, reducing labor and improving returns.
- FOLIUM (United Kingdom): Removal of feed bacteria via CRISPR.
- InTouch (Ireland): Online feed management solution for dairy farmers.
To learn more, visit pearselyonsaccelerator.com.
