VitalFields

VitalFields operated in the agricultural technology sector, providing a farm management software system designed for farmers to optimize their operations. The company was founded in Estonia in 2011 by Martin Rand and Vahur Meus. The initial concept, born out of a Garage48 hackathon, was to provide field-specific weather forecasts under the name WeatherMe. The founders' backgrounds blended technology and agriculture; Rand, the CEO, was a former Skype employee who had also worked as an IT manager for a precursor to the Estonian Agricultural Board, while Meus, the CTO, was a former back-end developer at Playtech.

The business catered to farmers in Europe, helping them plan, manage, and analyze field activities. Its software facilitated the tracking and reporting of all crop inputs, which was particularly crucial for ensuring compliance with the European Union's environmental standards and subsidy regulations. The platform functioned as a cloud-based tool for maintaining electronic field records, integrating weather data, managing warehouse stock, and analyzing farm efficiency. By collecting and analyzing data on field activities, the system aimed to provide recommendations on planting, harvesting, and the application of treatments to prevent plant diseases, thereby increasing yield and efficiency. The business model was based on a subscription fee, which at one point was priced per hectare after a free initial allocation.

After participating in the Startup Wise Guys accelerator program, VitalFields secured several rounds of funding from investors including SmartCap, TMT Investments, and Monsanto Growth Ventures, raising over $2 million. The company expanded its services across seven European countries, including Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. A significant milestone was its acquisition in November 2016 by The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto, marking Climate Corporation's first entry into the European market. This acquisition was intended to complement Climate Corporation's own FieldView platform and expand the user base of VitalFields' tools across Europe.

Keywords: farm management software, agritech, crop management, precision agriculture, digital farming, agricultural compliance, field activity tracking, weather forecasting for farmers, plant disease modeling, soil health, EU agricultural policy, Martin Rand, Vahur Meus, The Climate Corporation, Monsanto, Estonian startup, farm data analytics, crop input management, yield optimization, Startup Wise Guys