The funding from COTU Ventures, Daltex and Nuwa Capital will help scale Orth, an AI assistant that delivers plot-level precision to help farmers achieve over 20 per cent improvements in yield and efficiency
Aydi, the AI-powered field operating system, has announced the close of a $7.5mn seed round with funding from COTU Ventures, Daltex and Nuwa Capital with participation from Magrabi Agriculture and Foundation Ventures.
According to the platform, the funding will be used to introduce and scale Orth, an AI agronomy assistant that provides personalised real-time insights to empower growers facing rising input costs, climate volatility, and expert shortages.
“Closing the seed round is a major milestone for Aydi and validates our mission to give every grower access to world-class agronomy,” said Hassan Fayed, founder and CEO of Aydi.
“Experts say global food demand is set to rise 70 per cent by 2050. However, according to our company’s internal estimates, 90 per cent of growers lack access to timely agronomic expertise, given there is only 1 agronomist per 10,000 acres worldwide.
”Orth changes that by turning decades of agricultural science into an easy-to-use AI assistant that gives farmers instant recommendations, detects problems early, and helps them grow higher-quality crops,” he noted.
Orth’s intelligence engine brings together satellite and weather monitoring, predictive analytics on millions of data points, and conversational AI for instant answers, Aydi explained.
This combination delivers ”plot-level precision”, enabling farmers to achieve over 20 per cent improvements in yield and efficiency, the group said.
Backed by these capabilities, Orth has “attracted strong support from investors”.
“From the very beginning, we were inspired by Hassan’s relentless drive to tackle one of the world’s most pressing challenges: how to help growers thrive in the face of climate and cost pressures,” shared Amir Farha, founder of COTU Ventures.
”We believe that agriculture needs its AI moment, and Orth has the ability to empower millions of growers to farm smarter and more profitably, and produce more efficiently and sustainably.”
Nitin Reen, partner at Nuwa Capital, said his group has been a supporter of Aydi since ideation.
“With the advent of AI, there is a growing opportunity to digitise what has been, comparatively, an analog industry,” commented Reen.
”Orth gives all farm operators access to agronomy specific information and recommendations which was historically reserved for large scale farms, thus democratising access to this expertise.
”We believe that this has the power to truly transform the industry and we are excited to see how the next couple of years unfolds,” he enthused.
“Understanding field context is one of the most difficult challenges facing technology solutions in the agriculture space,” said Ibrahim El Naggar, vice-president of operations at Daltex.
”Aydi and Orth provide growers with the ability to capture, own, and understand their field data by leveraging AI to enhance on-ground operational insights. This is a solution for growers, by growers.”
Orth launches today at Fruit Attraction in Madrid, with free and paid tiers for individual users and businesses.
”This funding positions Aydi to scale Orth into a full AI operating system for global agriculture, with the goal of reaching millions of farmers worldwide,” Aydi added.
