25 / 28
25
Ag tech start-up Verility closes its $3.5 million Series
A funding round led by Mountain Group Partners and
includes a previous investment from Perdue Foundry
She continued: “The investment will allow us to reach
the point of preparing for commercialization, which
we anticipate in late 2023. It’s extremely exciting to
have the ability to bring automated mobile breeding
technologies into a segment of the animal health
industry that normally does not see much innovation.”
According to Verility, Fertile-Eyez is akin to having a
skilled lab technician and a microscope in the palm of
your hand. The cloud-based mHealth, or mobile health,
technology has, said Hart, the potential to change
how testing is done in the breeding industry across all
major livestock species, with increased performance of
livestock production facilities and furthering superior
genetics.
The tool avoids any subjectivity of sperm analysis and
ovulation detection, according to Verility. The person
reading the sample is completely removed as it no
longer requires a highly-skilled technician or someone
to send samples to a third-party lab or a different part
of the farm for analysis.
Verility believes that the Fertile-Eyez mobile fertility
platform will change how testing is done in the
breeding sheds, which will better increase the
performance of livestock production facilities and help
improve the desired genetic benefits.
Because estrus detection is a very labor-intensive and
time-consuming procedure, it relies on people having
to check on heat detection, usually only once a day.
Because users can only really check infrequently,
errors can occur as to identifying when ovulation
will actually occur—leading to missed cycles and
opportunities.
But that is avoided with the Fertile-Eyez technology,
which Verility said is very affordable, at only a fraction
of the cost of what is currently on the market.
Veterinarians, producers, and breeders around the
world will be able to utilize cell morphology fertility
parameters to improve their animal production
systems.
Said
Brian Kopp
, the company’s Chief Financial Officer,
“We are extremely pleased that more investment is
finding its way into animal health innovation to bring
more efficiency to animal production. We have a
real opportunity to make a significant improvement
in animal fertility, an area where more innovation is
needed.”
Added Shafiee, “This Series A funding will help us
to commercialize our first AI-enabled product for
accurate, affordable, and real-time ovulation prediction
in swine.”
Rob Readnour
, the Managing Director at Mountain
Group Partners who invested in the tech was
impressed with Fertile-Eyez.
“Producers are facing challenges from rising input
costs and labor shortages only exasperated by the
pandemic. They need innovation like Fertile-Eyez to
help them meet the important mission of producing
animal protein in a sustainable way,” related Readnour.
Riley Gibb
, director of business development at
Purdue Foundry, said the company is a strong example
of start-ups that bring Purdue-supported innovations
to the market.
“Liane Hart is one of many high-quality entrepreneurs
bringing Purdue-supported start-ups to market,” he
said. “Verility and other companies are already
making an impact in plant sciences and animal
sciences.”
|
pag
“THE INVESTMENT WILL ALLOW US TO
REACH THE POINT OF PREPARING FOR
COMMERCIALIZATION...”
ANDREW JOSEPH
FARMS.COM