2022 is already shaping up to be a busy year. But before we dive headfirst into the action that this new year brings, we want to look back at how much has changed in 2021.

We have a lot to celebrate, but what stands out to us the most is our Early Access customers. We spent the year building Nordetect alongside growers, agronomists, product managers, and crop researchers, and it thrill us to be a partner in their growth and progress.
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Here are some of our biggest wins from 2021:

• Raised $1.5M in a Seed Round from Luminate, SOSV, Rockstart, and PreSeed Ventures
• Built an incredibly talented team of 10 members from over six countries to accelerate product development and adoption
• Launched an exclusive Early Access Program to onboard clients across US and Europe in the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry
• Secured grant funding of over $500K from InnovationFundDenmark and Eureka Foundation.
• Won the $250K prize at Grow-NY and won Bayer Crop Science’s Annual startup call
• Expanded the Nordetect nutrient panel (NPK, Ca, Mg) to test and analyze for more chemistries reliably and simultaneously

2021’s success resulted from the courage and conviction of our team. From developing efficient processes for working remotely to solving some of the hardest multi-dimensional problems, we are confident in what the next chapter holds.

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Seed Financing

We started the year with a $1.5 million seed round from Luminate, SOSV, Rockstart, and PreSeed Ventures to give vertical farms a better way to monitor and manage nutrients. Various grants also brought in $500K in non-dilutive funding to support product development.

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Building Our A-Team

Even before we started Nordetect, we knew what we wanted our core tech team to look like:

1. Multi-Dimensional Problem Solvers: agile at iterating on client/market learnings using different perspectives
2. Mission Driven: have experience working with farms and sustainability to bring first-hand knowledge

Our team's expertise covers plant science, microfluidics, assay development, deep learning, and hardware development.

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Nordetect Early Access Program

With fresh capital and a dedicated team, we launched our first Early Access Program, an exclusive waitlist program that helps next-generation data farmers and consultants partner with us.

From enhancing their yields, to rapidly iterating nutrient recipes, to lowering their nutrient waste, our clients never stop amazing us with the use cases of our product.

Now, our core focus is rolling out production units to our first Early Access customers while opening up the program to new customers.

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Aligning With The Ecosystem - Bayer Crop Science & Grow-NY

Securing multiple partnerships and grants at some of the most prestigious competitions in the industry helped us nurture relationships to power product development and adoption. Some notable ones include:

• Bayer Crop Science (Powered by Hello Tomorrow) International Startup Challenge: Along with seven other startups including Connecting Food, TrusTrace, Index Biosystems Inc., Food Bundles, ExciPlex, and Mvutu, we won an opportunity to explore partnerships and projects with the Bayer Crop Science team.
• Grow-NY: Grand Slam of Agrifood startups in Syracuse, New York. We won $250,000 in prize money alongside other innovative businesses including Whole & Free Foods, LLC - Every Body Eat®, Neupeak Robotics, WeRadiate, Ascribe Bioscience, DraughtLab, and EmGenisys. This helps boost our footprint in the North American market, specifically New York State, which has seen rapid growth in the Controlled Environmental Agriculture sector.
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Seamless Customer Experiences – From AgroChip to Cloud to Crops

The pilot program brought deep, rich feedback that helped us polish our product experience to a degree that has our customers saying “Damn, that’s fast”!

Some of the key features incorporated in the 2022 Early Access batch include:

• Expanded Nutrient Panel: The AgroChip, a proprietary microfluidic device, tests a total of five chemistries including NPK, Calcium, and Magnesium, with Sulphur and other micronutrients in the pipeline. Simply insert the AgroChip in the Analyzer, add the sample to the AgroChip, click analyze, and view your results in minutes! Want to request a nutrient for your farm? Drop us a line.
• Nordetect End-to-End Nutrient Management Platform: Users can design custom views to visualize nutrient levels anytime, across every tray or aisle. You can also store data on your farm CRM or trigger the next fertigation cycle. Nordetect ensures efficient nutrient use as you improve yields and crop quality.
  
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2022 and Ahead

We will be doubling down on solving problems for building-based vertical farms, hydroponics, aquaponics, shipping containers, and closed and semi-closed greenhouses. Our nutrient panel will be best suited for cannabis, berries, tomatoes, and leafy green growers. If this sounds like you, get on our waitlist! We would love to talk to you about your needs and challenges and learn what you would like to see us build.

We would like to thank each of you for being a part of this journey and hope we can meet in person soon! Be the first to know what’s happening at Nordetect by subscribing to our updates! You’ll hear about the benefits of real-time nutrient analysis, bio-fertilizers, opportunities to grow your career in Agtech, and much more!