Drought Venture Studio by Beanstalk Agtech

Use of cookies

The evokeAG. website uses cookies to enhance your experience and optimise site functionality.

Please refer to our Cookie Policy for more information on which cookies we use and how we collect and use your personal information through cookies

Skip to Content Skip to Navigation

Beanstalk AgTech's Drought Venture Studio showcased at evokeAG. 2025.

Beanstalk AgTech will showcase eight innovators advancing to the second phase of its inaugural year of the Drought Venture Studio, using a new methodology to drive commercialising agtech investment innovation, at AgriFutures evokeAG. in February 2025.

The team at Drought Venture Studio

Beanstalk AgTech has created a world-first Drought Venture Studio program, supporting innovators from across Australia to identify potential solutions that address aspects of one of Australian agriculture’s most pressing problems: drought.

An AgriFutures evokeAG. 2025 partner, Beanstalk’s Head of Venture Studio Marcus Agnew said drought was a perennial problem for the sector, devastating for producers brutal on rural communities, and expensive for governments.

“It’s one thing to respond after the fact, to try and help them through that,” he said.

“But there’s recognition that as a country, as an economy, as a society, we can do a better job of preparing producers before the fact by giving them technologies that are uniquely developed to help them become more resilient.”

Launched in March 2024, the Drought Venture Studio is a two-year pilot project funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund, working closely with the nation’s eight Drought Hubs.

Pioneering a new model for supporting agtech

Establishing a venture studio has long been on the cards for Beanstalk, Marcus says, with agtech better suited to a venture studio model than traditional venture capital approaches.

Unlike VC funds, accelerators and incubators, the venture studio looks for raw ideas with potential and provides hands-on support at a much earlier stage.

This helps circumvent three of the main challenges for commercialising agtech: customer access, pain point identification and idea validation, and collaborative industry partnerships.

“Capital on its own is not enough to grow startups in agtech.” Marcus Agnew.

“There are some unique challenges about agtech that make it harder to do on your own as an entrepreneur, and harder for outside investors to play a role. Getting to customers in ag is challenging because that last mile is very expensive, and farmers are hard to reach.

“If you’re an entrepreneur trying to knock on all those doors yourself takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Agtech is much more challenging than other areas of tech, where you can launch an app on the Apple app store and see it take off.”

RELATED: Five must-see sessions on day 1 of evokeAG. 2025 – evokeAG.

A problem-first approach to agtech solutions at Drought Venture Studio

The Drought Venture Studio speeds up that process by leveraging Beanstalk’s pre-existing relationships and connections with agribusiness and partner organisations to help identify both universal and sector-specific issues.

“We’re constantly trying to understand the challenge and the pain points in the real world and then try and find the technology to fill that, as opposed to saying, ‘Here’s a cool technology, let’s try and figure out where the application is’,” Marcus said.

“We’re talking to growers, producers, agribusiness players and R&D corporations, because they all have a finger on the pulse.

 

“We can also help entrepreneurs, who have a technology and are fixated on one sector of ag, to explore and have conversations with future customers or industries that they haven’t thought about.” Marcus Agnew.

 

Interpretation of the drought resilience theme is broad.

It encompasses data models, software, algorithms and sensors, biotech, hardware or other innovations that address 10 challenges including:

  • Water
  • Soil
  • Broadacre crops and horticulture
  • Livestock
  • Pests and weeds
  • Environmental sustainability
  • Supply chain management
  • Financial resilience
  • Information and knowledge sharing
  • Community resilience and wellbeing

RELATED: Ready for launch: SkyKelpie’s Luke Chaplain ready to muster at evokeAG. 2025 – evokeAG.

From raw ideas to investable companies

The Drought Venture Studio takes a two-phase approach to selecting and developing innovative ideas that fit its criteria.

In the first phase, 24 ideas are chosen by a panel of industry professionals for a 90-day deep dive, working with Beanstalk to understand the technology, its commercial applications, and work out whether each is a good idea that could have a meaningful impact on drought resilience.

In the second phase, a handful of those ideas are chosen by an investment committee which includes investors such as Sarah Nolet from Tenacious Ventures, Kylie Frazer from Flying Fox Ventures and Patti Chiu from Silverstrand Capital. They receive 12 months of intensive support with mentoring, access to networks and financial assistance of up to $250,000.

Showcasing four outstanding solutions

Four innovators from the first cohort have received conditional offers to progress to phase two and will be among those presenting in the Beanstalk Drought Resilience Pitchathon at evokeAG. 2025 on Tuesday, 18 February at 11:15am.

They are:

  • VensoGrow, which is commercialising a new technique for evenly layering multiple seed treatments, including those that would normally be incompatible, while ensuring less damage to the seed, reducing spoilage and improving germination rates. Chief Executive Officer Caecilia Potter is pursuing an invention of her late father Emeritus Professor Owen Potter AM.
  • Cavicam is a new camera technology that allows real time monitoring of water uptake and stress responses in plants with softer stems or trunks without piercing the skin. Developed by University of Tasmania research associate Dr Chris Lucani.
  • Aquifa is a water trading management system developed by Nick Johnston to help water brokers with offers, trades and their compliance requirements.
    Darts Biotech is working on a mould inhibitor that can be sprayed on hay and silage to protect it from deterioration, ensuring livestock feed is safer and more nutritious. Developed by University of Queensland researchers Dr Peter Dart and Evgeny Sagulenko.

Marcus said technology offered enormous potential for helping Australian farmers and agribusinesses to become more sustainable and resilient to climate change.

“I’m excited that ag is at an early stage of the journey, and I think programs like ours can help to speed up tech adoption, because we’ve seen how technology has transformed other sectors of the economy,” he said.

“Australia does good research, but we’re not as good at commercialising technology. By filling that gap, we’re hopefully going to be bringing through more companies that are investable, so the more established venture capital players can write that first cheque and ultimately have them grow at scale in Australia and then take them to the world.”

Building a collaborative ecosystem for sustainable agriculture

The second cohort began phase one in November. Expressions of interest for the third Drought Venture Studio intake open in late January 2025, although Beanstalk is keen to hear at any time from people with an idea of their own or an interest in joining a pool of potential co-founders with experience in executing startups.

Participation is free and the government funding means neither Beanstalk nor the Drought Venture Studio take any equity in new ventures.

Beanstalk’s partners include Dairy Australia, Wine Australia, AgriFutures, GRDC and CRDC along with Virescent Ventures, Flying Fox Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, Silverstrand Capital and Mandalay VC.

Learn more about the work of Beanstalk AgTech and meet the team at the Asia Pacific’s premier agrifood event, evokeAG. 2025 in Brisbane 18-19 February 2025. Tickets available here.

Read more news
Read more news