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Top 25 go through interview round
Top 5 chosen for Startup Program
Lely Startup Program
Finals Day
The Feed the Future Challenge is a great opportunity to grow your business! We ensure that all finalist startups gain new market insights, startup skills, and a larger network. The winning team will get the chance to run a pilot with Lely, so join us as we MOO-ve towards a more sustainable and circular farm.
Win the chance to potentially run a pilot with us
Meet and greet sessions with our C-level team
Sit down and discuss investment opportunities with Lely Network
A pitch event broadcast to our international network
A 4-week program to explore your potential collaboration with us
The program is designed by our partner Rockstart, a leading European VC-accelerator
Find out what you can expect from the challenge in more detail in our special blog post.
We’re eager to find innovative solutions with applications in the dairy industry, so if you think you have what it takes to shape the future of farming, then we’re excited to meet you! Your startup should be based in Europe or Israel and should already have proof of concept and traction in the market.
Consumers’ increasing awareness of the dairy industry has led to greater accountability for animal welfare. We put cows’ health and happiness first and we are always looking for ways to improve our cows’ welfare. Solutions that involve bio-sensor technology or spectrometers that detect mastitis, for example, are of interest for us.
Dairy machines are a point of pride for us at Lely. However, we do not want to fall behind in improvements of our machinery, or the service we bring to our customers (the farmers). Therefore we are looking for new solutions that can improve either the machinery itself, or the way the machinery is transported and serviced. For example, this could be sustainable and smart packaging, such as films.
After decades of globalizing our production, we are looking to make our production process more circular and sustainable, while still maintaining efficiency. We are looking for solutions that make use of clean energy for farming practices, use bio materials, or tackle pasture management, feed conversion, and land management.
Data is at the core of how we innovate, meaning that data collection and the translation of this information is a high priority. It is not only important to us to collect data for internal purposes, but also to be transparent towards our consumers. Solutions that create transparency in the supply chain, animal treatment, or production processes are therefore all very welcome to apply.
Meet Zara - our Feed the Future program manager
She is here to help you with any requests on questions you may have about the current Feed the Future Challenge, or any upcoming collaborations and activities.
"Hi all! My name is Zara, I am in the lead from the Rockstart Partnership - a leading VC-Accelerator, and I am the main contact for all the startup and external innovation contacts for the Feed the Future program. So very happy to help you with any inquires you may have! Please contact me via email at zara@rockstart.com"
