LB Agtech - Simon Burt, Ray Kwon & Kellie Beattie
Hone TEK Program 1
1 Nov 2022
Introduction
LB Agtech was founded by two entrepreneurs, Simon Burt & Ray Kwon who, with differing industry backgrounds, share a passion for technology and farm-to-consumer connectivity. Simon and Ray had been working on several commercial opportunities unrelated to Agrifood and founded LB Agtech upon identifying a gap in sourcing and marketing certified Australian honey for export. More specifically the gap was an inability to source location based certified honey for an overseas buyer.
Hone Journey
Over the course of the Hone programme LB Agtech further refined their BeeStar technology. The team made significant steps forward in relation to unpacking the technological and competitive benefits of this system and its core technology components for beekeepers. They clearly identified specific customer segments, marketing and distribution channels and advanced alterations to their MVP prototype. A key value proposition for Beekeepers and Regulators is the software systems compliance and certification capability. With MVP (smart hives) field use underway and customer feedback continuing into 2023, the team anticipates further refinements. The number of MVP Beestar units were expanded to include multiple trial locations in differing conditions, further validating systems capability, communication capabilities and robustness. The team were able to develop a clear understanding of multiple revenue opportunities and refined their focus to the Beestar platform (smart hives) and subscriptions for users/data.
Premium proven product leads to greater margins.
What's Next?
In the first quarter of 2023, the company will continue primary field testing in Tasmania via Tasmanian Pollination Services (manage over 16,000 hives globally) and undertake a seed funding round. The platform continues to be refined and developed into the second quarter and pollination data collection and reporting will commence as will sales and marketing. The third quarter will build upon quarters 1 & 2's successes with plans for a more significant investment round as the company seeks to scale onwards of the last quarter of 2023. MOU’s have been executed that will facilitate international deployment of the platforms initially into several Asia countries over the same period.
Program Partners
