Israeli Agtech Firm Fermata Expands To North America

Israeli-based agtech company, Fermata, announced on Thursday its entry into North American markets following three years of R&D and pilot projects testing the performance of the company’s AI platform, Croptimus Pest and Disease, that addresses the challenging rates of crop failure facing commercial greenhouse agriculture.

The expansion into North America brings new Canadian leadership to the company welcoming founder of CarbonBook, Alastair Monk, and experienced marketing manager, Ray Richards as Fermata’s new Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively. In addition, Fermata’s Israeli founder, Valeria Kogan, will become its chief information officer in addition to her other responsibilities. 

Since its establishment in 2019, Fermata has applied data science and computer vision solutions to automate the detection of crop pathogens through image capture analysis. The AI platform automatically analyzes images taken by specialized cameras to identify pests and diseases at their earliest and least visible stages, helping licensed producers and growers reduce crop loss by 30% and increasing profits while cutting the time spent on manual monitoring by half. 

“As a founder of an AgTech company with 5+ years in the horticulture market and leading digital services at Priva, I can confidently tell you there is an opportunity to make an immediate impact in this industry,” said Monk. “Fermata has a fantastic team, solid technology, and strong global investors. I look forward to contributing to the growth in North America and worldwide as companies look for a helping hand in automating aspects of crop production.” 

“All of the pieces are in place to generate exponential growth as we enter the North American market with our machine learning solutions,” added Richards. “We have an extremely innovative, useful product that saves growers both substantial time and money – now all we have to do is let the world know about it.”