Agtech - So What?

Some of the most transformative innovation in agri-food is happening downstream of the farm, in the materials, products, and industries that agriculture ultimately feeds into.

In this episode, Sarah Nolet speaks with Tina Funder, founder of Alt Leather, an Australian startup developing fully bio-based alternatives to traditional leather.

Tina’s journey into agtech didn’t begin in a lab or on a farm, but in advertising, where she developed a deep understanding of customers, branding, and problem solving. Concerned that most alternative leathers were more plastic than plant, Tina has built a company which sits across multiple industries, from agriculture, biotechnology, manufacturing and fashion. 

But this complexity comes with its challenges. Is Alt Leather a materials company? A biotech platform? Or a manufacturing business? And how does that complexity impact their ability to build a team, raise capital, and commercialize?

Sarah and Tina also discuss:

Why some of the biggest agtech opportunities sit in materials and manufacturing.

The challenge of building fully bio-based materials in a plastic-dominated industry.

Evolving your value proposition to focus on what matters to your customers.

The realities of scaling a deep tech company, including capital, manufacturing, and commercial partnerships.

Why sustainability must be paired with price and performance to win 

The conversation also reframes one of the most widely misunderstood aspects of leather. While much of the narrative focuses on livestock emissions, Tina highlights that the majority of environmental impact comes from the tanning process (including water use, chemicals, and pollution.)

Useful Links:

Building a Ladder to Commercial Success for Deep Tech Founder

Durable and Degradable: Our Compostable Bio-Based Leather Alternative

SproutX: the Victorian seed fund accelerating agriculture - Forbes Australia

Curing fashion’s reliance on leather with an eco-friendly plant-based alternative - CSIRO

Innovera Alt-Leather in Mercedes-Benz Concept - DVN

Life on Mars Goods

Samsara Eco

YUIMA NAKAZATO Couture GLACIER

Penfolds Premium Gift with Purchase | Upstairs Yellow.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

While agtech often celebrates breakthrough technologies that can slash costs for farmers, what if the real value of innovation lies somewhere else entirely?

In this episode, Mark Trzaskoma joins Dr Madeline Mitchell to explore what agtech adoption actually looks like on the ground at Battunga Orchards, a 180-hectare orchard operating across three sites in Victoria.

From mechanised harvest platforms to canopy redesign and data collection tools, each decision at Battunga is guided by a “test, measure, learn” approach, focused on yield, quality, and long-term performance rather than short-term efficiency gains.

Mark also shares a cautionary insight: optimizing for cost can actually reduce productivity. His experience of hitting cost targets in pruning, only to see production decline, highlights a broader challenge in agriculture: efficiency is not the same as effectiveness.

Mark and Maddie discuss:

Why agtech often delivers value through better outcomes, not lower costs.

Why cost-cutting can undermine productivity in biological systems.

The realities of working with early-stage, evolving agtech products.

Labor constraints and their role in driving automation in horticulture.

Bridging the growing disconnect between producers and consumers

Useful Links:

Battunga Orchards from the air, Warragul, Victoria, Australia

Future Orchards® | Apple and Pear Australia Limited (APAL)

Food Traceability QR Codes

Investment Notes: Agovor

How small growers think about agtech - Tenacious Ventures 

Getting agtech ready - Tenacious Ventures

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

[00:7:20] Agtech drives better outcomes, not just lower costs. 

[00:10:30] Cost-cutting can reduce yield.

[00:26:30] Why growers and consumers are disconnected.

Co-operatives have a long and sometimes colored history in agriculture, across the Western world. What role will they play in the future of agriculture?

As agriculture becomes increasingly shaped by digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the question of who owns, governs, and benefits from farm data is still unresolved. Could co-ops be the answer?

In this episode, Sarah Nolet is joined by Tenacious Ventures co-founder Matthew Pryor and the creator of Upstream Ag Insights, Shane Thomas, to explore the history of co-operatives as a means for farmers to pool resources and address market power imbalances.  They also unpack the business model behind co-ops and analyze whether the principles of co-ops could also be applied to digital infrastructure. 

This episode is the first in a series of business model “breakdown” episodes we’ll be producing this year, where we’ll dig into how agriculture systems, structures, and even specific companies work, why they matter today, and the impact of agtech in their evolution. 

This format is an experiment and we’d love your feedback!

Sarah, Matthew, and Shane discuss:

Why agricultural cooperatives emerged and how they address power imbalances in agricultural markets.

How the cooperative model could extend from physical infrastructure to digital infrastructure and farm data governance.

Whether co-ops could serve as trusted intermediaries for training AI models using aggregated farm data.

How governance tensions between different types of farmers might play out in a data-driven future.

How consolidation of cooperatives and changing farm structures could shape the future of technology adoption.

Got a business model you’d like for us to break down in a future episode? Let us know!

Useful Links:

The 3 Fears of Farm Data (and bonus episode w/ audience responses)

Coming to terms with farm data usage

Farm data fears - more harm than good?

Rebooting AgTech Software with AI, with Rhishi Pethe

Companies mentioned: Regen Farmers Mutual; CBH Group; The Rochdale Pioneers | ICA; The UFA Agricultural Community Foundation - Our Purpose; CHS Inc.; History | WinField® United

Australian Grains Champion withdraws CBH proposal

OpenWeedLocator (OWL): an open-source, low-cost device for fallow weed detection | Scientific Reports

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

In less than a year, NZ-based virtual fencing company Halter raised $165 million and then $220 million more, reaching a $2 billion valuation at a time when global agtech funding is down more than 70% from its peak. By any measure, that's a remarkable achievement.

But what does it actually mean?

In this episode, Halter founder and CEO Craig Piggott speaks with our producer and dairy owner Kirsten Diprose about building the company from the ground up, from training cows on his parents' farm in the Waikato to shipping a million solar-powered collars across three countries.

Craig and Kirsten discuss:

What virtual fencing is and why pasture-based farmers are adopting it

The technical and behavioural challenges of building reliable hardware for animals

Halter’s evolution from a tech-first experiment into a farmer-first platform

What scaling from New Zealand into Australia and the US actually looks like

The conversation was recorded at the Australian Dairy Conference just before Halter’s Series E announcement. Host Sarah Nolet shares her own perspectives at the end, including the questions she wished she'd been able to ask Craig directly.

Useful Links:

Halter raises $220M in Series E less than a year after raising $165M Series D

Kiwi AI farming start-up worth $2.9b as Peter Thiel invests

Halter says it’s not an agtech company on the heels of $220m Series E

The Innovation Sweet Spot: Aligning Corporates, Startups and Investors, with Brad Fruth and Frank Wooten

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Seven years ago, agtech in Australia was still in its infancy. There were bold predictions, a flurry of startups, and an emerging ecosystem of programs and investors to back them. So how have things panned out?

In this live stage recording at the 2026 AgriFutures evokeAG event in Melbourne, Sarah Nolet is joined by Sam Duncan, founder of GXLab (formerly FarmLab and Ziltek) and Natalie Engel, a QLD-based cattle producer. Together, they reflect on the last seven years of the Aussie agtech ecosystem: the hype cycles, the pivots, and the very human realities behind building technology in agriculture.

Back in 2019 at the first evokeAG event, both Sam and Natalie pitched two very different ideas. Sam was an outsider to agriculture with a vision to use soil data and soil carbon to tackle climate change. While as a farmer, Natalie was reverse-pitching a problem: the frustrating reality of livestock traceability paperwork and the need for better digital tools.

Seven years later, neither could have predicted where their agtech journeys would end up.

Sarah, Sam, and Natalie discuss:

What the agtech ecosystem looked like in 2019 and how expectations around soil carbon, digitization, and traceability have evolved.

Why building agtech startups often requires navigating both the realities of farming and the pressures of venture-backed growth.

The emotional toll of entrepreneurship in agriculture.

Why the next decade of agtech may be driven less by hype and more by resilience, cost pressures, and geopolitical shifts affecting agriculture.

Useful Links:

Agriculture’s technology future: How connectivity can yield new growth | McKinsey

FarmLab’s journey to GXLab: From Startup Alley to global soil solutions - evokeAG.

Seven Years On, evokeAG. Returns to Melbourne to Chart Agtech’s Next Frontier

Beyond the funding winter: Australia's agtech opportunity - evokeAG.

Meet Natalie Engel - Cattle farmer and agtech enthusiast | Mobble

Companies mentioned: Ceres Tag, Halter, Agovor, AgriProve, Mobble, OptiWeigh, AgFrontier 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe the information is correct, we provide no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.