Typically, start-ups that surmount the ‘proof of concept’ hurdle, enter the marketplace and build a customer base appeal more to investors, boosting their chances of gaining market momentum. But for agrifood-tech companies in particular, the scale-up stage comes with its own set of challenges – challenges programs such as Amsterdam-based ScaleUp Food are doing their best to address.
In this five-minute read from AgFunder News, Jurg van Vliet, co-founder of Amsterdam-based software company 30MHz, talks about its expansion challenges and the value of having export mentorship and support during this stage.
Van Vliet and his team built an analytics and management platform for smart devices, successfully adapted it to suit the indoor farming sector and is now scaling up its business with the help of agrifood-tech accelerator ScaleUp Food, backed in part by the ag-tech investment arm of Netherlands-based Rabobank.
Support through scale-up
The scale-up stage, notes the article, presents its own set of challenges: ‘A product that works well among early, forward-thinking adopters may not suit a more reactive mass market. Facilities may not be as easily replicable from an entry market into expansion markets. Building a business strategy to overcome these issues often requires different skills and resources than founding teams have, or have readily available.’
ScaleUp Food, which provides resources and mentorship for growth-stage agrifood companies, has a 20-point checklist of issues unique to scale-ups, including how to think about international expansion; strategic partnerships; and the organisation’s talent needs.
To date, the program has supported 11 companies, including 30MHz. It plans to go global with its next cohort.
Source: What It Takes To Scale An Agrifood Tech Startup I Agfunder News