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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

TeleSense

TeleSense Raises $10.2M for its IoT Crop Spoilage Prediction Platform

TeleSense, which uses IoT-enabled sensors to detect and predict crop spoilage, announced today that it has closed a $10.2 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by existing investor, Finistere Ventures with participation from Fulcrum Global Capital, UPL Ltd, Artesian and Mindset Ventures. This brings TeleSense’s total amount of funding to $17.5 million.

When we first wrote about TeleSense in 2018, it was focused on grain spoilage detection. Connected sensors placed in grain stores would monitor conditions like humidity and temperature to help farmers prevent spoilage.

But since then, the company acquired Dutch sensor company Webstech, and expanded TeleSense’s use case from just detection and more into prediction. TeleSense now combines it detection data with machine learning and AI to help maintain grain quality and optimize its path through the supply chain.

“Sensing temperature and humidity is nice, but that’s only part of the value,” Telesense CEO Naeem Zafar told my by phone earlier this month. “It’s beyond spoilage and more [about] operational efficiencies.”

To that end, TeleSense has also shifted its target customer. Initially, the company was going after farmers, but it has since shifted to focus more on large grain trading companies and co-ops. With its sensing and analysis technology, TeleSense can help predict how long to store grain and the optimal time to sell.

The company is also expanding into grain transportation. According to Zafar, dozens of grain barges catch fire because grains overheat. With its temperature monitoring, TeleSense sensors can help prevent this type of crop loss during transport.

In addition to prediction, Zafar said that TeleSense is also moving beyond grains and applying its technology to potatoes and other perishable commodities.

TeleSense is among a new crop of companies fighting food waste along the supply chain. Other players include companies like HWY Haul helps automate the trucking of produce, Silo aims to automate supply chain operations, and Strella Biotech, which uses IoT sensors on shipping palates to track produce freshness as it travels from farm to fork.

Headquartered in California, TeleSense also has offices in Australia and Europe.

Grain Storage IoT Company TeleSense Acquires Danish Sensor Maker, Webstech

TeleSense, a grain storage and transportation monitoring startup, announced today that it has acquired Webstech, a Danish food storage sensor company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

We covered TeleSense back in August of last year when the company raised a $6.5 million Series A round of financing, writing:

TeleSense is basically an industrial internet of things (IoT) company that uses a combination of wireless sensors and data tracking to help improve the food supply chain. TeleSense is initially focusing on grain storage and food transport, with its sensors continuously monitoring elements such as temperature and humidity. Using TeleSense’s cloud-based analytics platform, food producers can detect and be notified of anomalies or other problems early, and take action to prevent food spoilage.

TeleSense CEO Naeem Zafar told me by phone last week that the acquisition of Webstech has a number of payoffs for his company. First, Webstech does much the same thing and is already an established player in Europe, giving TeleSense an immediate extension and foothold on that continent. Second, and equally important to Zafar, Webstech has collected a rich data set of more than 60 million records. All this data can be fed into TeleSense’s algorithms and analytics platform for increased knowledge and performance.

As part of the deal Webstech will become TeleSense Europe and Webstech CEO, Thomas Kylling, will be that office’s General Manager, supporting existing European customers and heading up European expansion.

TeleSense is going after a pretty niche market (grain storage monitoring) and the acquisition of Webstech will go a long way towards making it an even bigger player in the narrow space. The addition of European customers adds to TeleSense’s existing pilot programs in the U.S. and Australia. The company has also opened an R&D facility in Vietnam.

AgTech IoT Startup TeleSense Raises $6.5M to Help Prevent Food Spoilage

TeleSense, an agtech startup that provides wireless monitoring for grain and food production, today announced it has raised a $6.5 million Series A round of funding led by Finistere Ventures. Congruent Ventures, Maersk Growth, Rabobank’s Food & Agri Innovation Fund, Radicle Growth and Trailhead Capital, as well as previous investor Plug and Play Ventures also joined the round.

TeleSense is basically an industrial internet of things (IoT) company that uses a combination of wireless sensors and data tracking to help improve the food supply chain. TeleSense is initially focusing on grain storage and food transport, with its sensors continuously monitoring elements such as temperature and humidity. Using TeleSense’s cloud-based analytics platform, food producers can detect and be notified of anomalies or other problems early, and take action to prevent food spoilage. The company says that it has already helped its customers save $3 million dollars worth of grains.

According to the press announcement, TeleSense will use its new funding to invest in research and development of its GrainSafe artificial intelligence platform and build out channels for international expansion.

We’ve covered a lot of farm IoT startups over the past year as there is a huge rush towards giving farmers and other food producers data-driven insights into their operations. Companies like Teralytic and Arable analyze soil and crop conditions, while Connecterra keeps track of cows. The danger with all these data platforms and a potential challenge for TeleSense is vendor fatigue. Farmers want to farm, not implement multiple platforms and analyze millions of data points.

But TeleSense’s transport monitoring technology is also working to help improve the supply chain, an area which is also seeing a lot of action. Companies like AgShift, Zest Labs, and Apeel are all bringing new technologies to market to help reduce food waste.