ICL is fostering the development of AI applications is through investments in AI AgTech startups via its Food and AgriTech accelerator Planet Startup Hub.
ICL Group is a renowned specialty minerals producer and supplier, and also a leading manufacturer of sustainable next gen fertilizers. The company has more than 12,500 employees located at its plants and research centers around the world and commits significant resources to innovation at every level. This commitment to R& D extends to the development of AI applications in AgriTech. One of the ways ICL is fostering the development of AI applications is through investments in AI AgTech startups via its Food and AgriTech accelerator Planet Startup Hub.
ICL Growing Solutions, the agriculture division of ICL, is collaborating with Agrematch, one of the world’s most innovative AI agriculture startups, in a new strategic partnership. Agrematch was founded in 2017 and is located in Rehovot, Israel, close to the prestigious Weizmann Institute and ICL’s own research facilities.
The shared goal of the partnership is to harness artificial intelligence to discover crop nutrition solutions that can impact crop yields and plant health at every level. The combined resources, scientific and commercial knowledge, and research capabilities of ICL and Agrematch can significantly accelerate innovation in the field of plant nutrition.
AI4AI: A Revolutionary Platform for AI in Agriculture
At the heart of Agrematch’s drive to discover active ingredients for plant nutrition is its revolutionary proprietary platform AI4AI – Artificial Intelligence for Active Ingredients. The AI4AI platform meets a critical need for affordable innovation in a field that is operating well below its true potential.
Currently, companies are challenged by the high costs of new product development and unfavorable time-to-market realities, as well as complex regulatory requirements. AI4AI has the potential to slash costs, streamline processes, and enable a new generation of vital crop nutrient products.
Eyal Ben-Chanoch, CEO of Agrematch offers some valuable insights into the AI4AI platform’s breakthrough capabilities.
“We are excited to partner with ICL and explore new solutions for plant nutrition. Using data science, and especially AI, has helped us to dramatically alter the discovery process, by eliminating both its sequential nature and the barriers that make the classical high-throughput screening methods costly, risky, and time-consuming. Our AI4AI platform was designed and built to discover new functional compounds that meet defined specifications.”
Dr Elinor Erez, VP of R&D for ICL Growing Solutions explains the strategic importance of the collaboration between ICL and Agrematch:
“This collaboration will focus on developing novel biostimulants products that provide superior results for plants. It supports our strategy to continue investing in the ag-biologicals market, which we see as highly complementary to – and aligning with – our existing agriculture business and the future of our specialty crop nutrition portfolios.
“ICL brings a huge contribution to this strategic collaboration, as this promising start-up will enjoy access to the global crop nutrition market, regulatory insights, agronomic aspects, and development, along with the best-in-class group of R&D scientists and agronomists. Following an extensive evaluation of Agrematch’s technological capabilities, we are excited to collaborate with them to deliver novel ag-biological products to the global market.”
