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I studied telecommunications engineering. While I was attending university during my postgraduate years, I was doing consultancy in cybersecurity. Then, in 2017, I became one of the founders of Farm Technologies, a startup focused on irrigation resource management in agriculture. We wanted to help farmers decide how and when to irrigate through our product Idroplan. We collaborated with xFarm and knew its founders. Together we realised we were complementary, so we decided to join forces and merge into xFarm Technologies to become more attractive to potential investors. So, together with the Agronomic Product team, I continued to work on research and development of technological and digital products related to agronomy in xFarm Technologies. Thus, together with the Agronomic Product team, I continued to be involved in research and development of technology and digital products in agronomy at xFarm Technologies.
I have to say that at the beginning of my career, agriculture was a relatively distant sector from my background. Today, after years of working in this field, I feel at home.
Doing research and development in an agriculture-focused Tech Company means working at the intersection of the technological part and the agronomic part. Although the focus is agriculture, the tools are digital. So there is a strong technology development component at the level of programming and coding, but that has to go hand in hand with the agronomic part.
Once the technological requirements have been identified, we test the product with agronomists to check if it actually meets the needs of the end user. So it often happens that we go and test products directly in the field.
It is clear that with xFarm Technologies we are crossing the boundaries of digital agriculture, in Italy and abroad, signing partnerships and developing increasingly important projects. We are offering products that did not exist before, or at least did not reach this level of quality. Suffice it to say that the investment round we have concluded (18 million) is the largest in the European agritech sector. This confirms to us that what we are doing is out of the ordinary.
For me, the biggest challenge is people management, something we are all trying to work on, especially at management level.
Right now we are testing devices to be installed on tractors or other mobile vehicles to increase the efficiency of plant protection product application. The aim is that the treatments farmers carry out are done according to the needs of the plant. For example, if there is an empty space in the leaf wall, the sprayer does not spread the product there, which is an advantage from an environmental point of view but also an economic one, since it means less waste.
Another project I am pursuing is on a parametric insurance policy system based on weather data, which would overcome bureaucratic slowness and help to respond to farmers' needs in a reasonable timeframe.
From a business point of view, I hope that xFarm Technologies can become a leader in the agritech world within a few years, including through partnerships and, why not, further acquisitions. Professionally, I would like to be able to concretize and bring to the field and market the products we are working on. Personally, on the other hand, I aim to be able to better manage an increasingly large team.
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