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AgriWebb raises $30 million for sustainable livestock drive

Yolanda Redrup
Yolanda RedrupRich List co-editor

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Digital livestock management company AgriWebb has banked the largest local private funding round of 2021 so far, securing $30 million in a round led by Canadian telco TELUS.

The business, which was founded in 2014 by Justin Webb, Kevin Baum and John Fargher, was valued at $100 million as part of the funding round. It makes the largely paper-based processes of farm management digital, enabling farmers to use their data more effectively to increase a farm's productivity, traceability and sustainability.

AgriWebb co-founders John Fargher, Kevin Baum and Justin Webb want to take the company global.  Steven Saphore

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, Mr Webb said TELUS had been making a major push into the agtech sector since November, when it acquired seven businesses and launched TELUS Agriculture as a new business unit. This, he said, made them the right fit to come on board as an investor.

"They've been making ripples in the industry... growing the division to more than 2000 people in 18 months. They weren't hiding," Mr Webb said.

"It's different to bring on a PLC (public listed company) [as an investor] and even more unusual to bring on one from Canada that's in a different industry. But, thinking of the digital and telco space, they're wanting to increase digitisation across the landscape... and we wanted that alignment on delivering the future of digital infrastructure."

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Other investors in the round included The Duke of Westminster’s AgTech investment fund, The Wheatsheaf Group, and private investors such as the founder of the European meat processor, Dunbia.

In the last six years AgriWebb has grown to have 15 per cent of the national cattle and sheep stock managed on the platform.

Across the globe, including the UK and the US, AgriWebb has 14 million livestock across 100 million acres across the globe.

Mr Webb says the company can help farms become more sustainable Steven Saphore

Farmers on the platform on average experience a 7.5 per cent increase in productivity year-on-year, thanks to improvements in factors such as the weight of the livestock, the fertility of the animals, efficiency of the pasture use and the cost of labour time.

"When you aggregate that 7.5 per cent across beef and land production, in Australia alone that's a paradigm shift," Mr Webb said.

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Another major catalyst for AgriWebb's creation was a desire to help the agricultural sector become more sustainable.

As part of the round the government-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation invested $5 million into AgriWebb to help it further develop tools that track methane emissions from livestock, as well as carbon sequestration levels in soil.

"The growth of grass sequesters carbon into the plant and then into the soil... there's an optimal point for the fastest growth where grass will regenerate at its quickest rate, so you want to keep the grass in that period," Mr Webb said.

"You do that by measuring how much grass or feed there is and then managing the number of animals in there at a time. By managing the pasture and its rotation, you get the sweet spot of regenerative agriculture."

CEFC chief executive Ian Learmonth said the digitisation of livestock management made it easier to target value-adding certification like "carbon neutral beef".

"More efficient farm production is a win for farmers and the environment. Agriculture accounts for about 12 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, and red meat production contributes significantly through digestive gases and the reduction in soil carbon from overgrazing. Improving soil carbon levels can help reduce atmospheric carbon, offering another pathway to decarbonise the agricultural sector," he said.

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Minister for energy and emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, said soil carbon was one of the government's five priority areas for investment, as part of the country's technology investment roadmap.

The company's latest investment round follows a $14 million investment led by UK-based agriculture investment company Wheatsheaf Group in mid 2018.

Mr Webb's big hope was to contribute to feeding 50 billion people by 2050 in a more sustainable way than farming is done today.

Within this, he acknowledged the roles that plant-based and cell-based meat providers will also play, saying it required an industry-wide effort.

In the next five years Mr Webb hopes AgriWebb will be used by 100,000 farms and have 150 million animals on the platform.

Much of the latest funding round will go to accelerating its offshore growth, with the initial focus on the UK and the Americas.

"At 100,000 farms, we need to be right across the world. This Aussie tech needs to be pervasive through Canada, the US, the UK, Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand," he said. "I'd like to see a global uptick of 10 per cent in sustainable production efficiency."

Yolanda Redrup is the co-editor of the AFR Rich List. She previously reported on technology, healthcare and Street Talk. Connect with Yolanda on Twitter. Email Yolanda at yolanda.redrup@afr.com

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