Introducing Kilimo startup: saving water with the help of artificial intelligence and satellite data

Kilimo startup helps farmers to save water while maintaining their production level and earn money for this saving.

When people think about the water they use, they usually think of the water they drink or shower on a daily basis. But about 70% of our water consumption is spent on growing food crops, a figure that reaches 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for other uses is difficult.

In many areas, farmers are encouraged to use large amounts of water, even more than is actually needed, to ensure the success of their crop. “Governments want the country to produce its own food, and they don’t want water to be expensive,” Kilimo co-founder and CEO Jaero Tread told TechCrunch.

“But if farmers irrigate less, production may drop, significant income is lost, and more food is wasted,” he added. “It’s an imbalance in the stakes.”

Inexpensive irrigation has turned many regions of the world into food baskets. But this means a lack of water for other purposes as well.

For companies, water scarcity can be an existential threat. “If you have a bottling plant with $200 million in sales and you don’t have water the next week, you’re losing a lot of revenue,” Trede said. “So we started talking to people and trying to value water.”

What Trede and his colleagues have devised at Kilimo is a risk management tool. So far, the company has collected about 100,000 soil samples from 45 different crop types in several countries, mostly in South America. It then uses these samples to correlate soil moisture with satellite images of fields, which are much easier to obtain.

“We have to be on the ground to find out how things behave in that particular soil in that particular country,” Turd said.

Kilimo can then remotely monitor fields and advise farmers on water use. The company charges farmers a fee for this service, and if they manage to reduce water consumption, Kilimo can sell the excess water to a company that needs more water in the same watershed and share a portion of the revenue with the farmer.

Ultimately, farmers who reduce their water use get 20% to 40% more than what they paid for Kilimo. Everything is verified by third parties based on the Volumetric Water Interest Accounting Standard.

Although this startup has been operating for about a decade, it is expanding its activities as the water crisis increases. It currently operates throughout South America, including Argentina, where it is headquartered, as well as Mexico. The next step is to expand into the Southwest United States and Europe. To support this growth, Kilimo recently raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures and The Yield Lab Latam.

Kilimo works with Microsoft, Intel and Coca-Cola. All these companies have obligations in the field of water. Among them, data centers and beverages are big consumers of water. Tard hopes to sign more contracts with larger clients.

“One company alone cannot make a difference,” he said. But if you can coordinate companies, government and development bank institutions, then you can make a difference.”