Valeria Kogan, PhD, Founder and CEO of Fermata has been recognized as one in all Forbes’ “30 Under 30” in 2022, Valeria is a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record in biotechnology and innovation. Because the founding father of Fermata and the biotech firm Smartomica, Valeria combines her scientific expertise with a visionary approach to remodeling industries.
Fermata is an information science company revolutionizing agriculture with cutting-edge computer vision solutions. Its flagship platform, Croptimus™, provides 24/7 automated detection of pests and diseases, helping growers discover issues like powdery mildew, bud rot, and mosaic before they escalate. By reducing scouting time and minimizing crop loss, Fermata empowers farmers to give attention to solutions and maximize yield, whether in controlled environments or outdoor settings.
What inspired you to transition from bioinformatics and cancer research to agriculture technology? How did your experience with Smartomica influence the founding of Fermata?
My transition from biotech to agriculture was pretty accidental. Friends of friends of mine who were tomato producers were searching for someone with experience in AI to brainstorm together on its applications in farming. It was the time when deep learning has just began and created quite a lot of buzz within the tech space – it also found immediate applications within the medical domain through computer vision in radiology. Everyone in my circle was talking about it, so after I saw what the farming guys showed me – plant health issues that could be detected visually and that should be identified in real time – it immediately clicked. I had an idea to bring the knowledge from the medical space to agriculture which was a much less popular and digitized industry back then.
With a background in AI and biotech, what challenges did you face in adapting those technologies to agriculture?
I feel typically anyone who comes with a digital product to a conservative industry faces the identical level of resistance. Nevertheless, it’s harder for those who are an outsider. My approach was and is being humble and driven by the willingness to use my company’s knowledge to assist people, not to inform them what they’re doing improper and the way we might help them do it in the precise way. Through every conversation with growers, we learn and take a look at to remain open-minded and never too attached to our technology while prioritizing the needs of the grower and adjusting our product accordingly.
Fermata focuses on reducing crop losses and pesticide use. What was the initial reception of this concept within the agricultural community, and the way did you persuade stakeholders to adopt AI-driven solutions?
The initial reception was that it was impossible. I can’t say that much has modified over the past 5 years! We see great support from the early adopters and quite a lot of concerns from the broader audience. We’re lucky to have customers who consider within the technology and don’t just pay us money but turn into the showcases for the remainder of the market. One of the best and only thing we are able to really do is let the product speak for itself.
How does Croptimus™ integrate multiple data sources, resembling satellite imagery, sensors, and AI models, to offer actionable insights for growers?
Currently, we use only visual data from the cameras to research plant health and discover pests, diseases, nutrient problems, and other issues. Nevertheless, with the brand new developments within the AI sector, we understand the advantages that additional data sources can bring to us each for higher detection quality and in addition for enabling predictive analytics. Currently, we only use climate data in some projects, but plan to expand beyond that in 2025.
What makes Fermata’s early pest and disease detection capabilities unique in comparison with other AgTech solutions?
There are several things that make us unique. To begin with, over the past 5 years, we now have collected an insane database of plant images each through our customers and with our own R&D facility where we infest the plants to gather additional data. We also used an internal labeling team which we very fastidiously trained. Together with a broad network of agronomy experts from across the globe, this helped us to construct a really high-quality dataset. A deep understanding of machine learning together with the product vision helped us create a useful and easy product on top of that.
AI and computer vision are advancing rapidly. How does Fermata ensure its technology stays ahead of the curve on this competitive landscape?
At Fermata, we follow a data-centric approach, ensuring high-quality and versatile data labeling by bringing together agronomists and data scientists. We spend money on diverse datasets to maintain our technology competitive and we also give attention to solving specific problems and collaborate with partners when needed to stay the very best at what we do.
You’ve emphasized sustainability as a key goal. How do you see Fermata’s technology impacting global efforts to scale back food waste and minimize environmental harm?
By helping farmers discover pests and diseases in time we help them prevent losses, minimize food waste, and reduce pesticide use. This is particularly necessary in the present environment when the climate is changing. Many growers suffer from recent pests or diseases that they’ve never seen of their regions before. Due to that, early detection and assistance in tuning the mitigation strategies is essential for them.
Raising $10 million in Series A funding is a major milestone. How will this funding speed up Fermata’s vision, and what are your immediate priorities for growth?
We plan to make use of this money to grow from “The Eyes of Ag” to “The Brain of Ag” by integrating more data sources into our platform and broadening the list of products we provide beyond pests and diseases. Our immediate priorities include specializing in certain markets – Canada and the Netherlands, and tomato crops to get significant market share for the segment after which replicate it for the opposite regions and crops.
What role do you see emerging technologies, like robotics or IoT, playing in Fermata’s future innovations?
I consider that advancements in robotics and IoT will bring huge value to Fermata, because all these corporations are our potential partners. We’re looking forward to seeing each recent ways to gather data in addition to automated solutions to maneuver through the power and use fewer sensors and cameras to realize the identical goals.
What’s next for Fermata? Are there specific crops, regions, or technologies you’re particularly excited to explore in the approaching years?
In 2025 we shall be focused on tomato producers mainly in Canada and the Netherlands, but following that we aim to expand our services to other vegetables like cucumbers and peppers, then strawberries and grapes. I hope that we’ll enter global markets with the brand new crops on the end of this 12 months and in 2026. Regarding technologies, our plan is to go beyond pests and diseases into predicting the yield, assessing the efficiency of pollination, and lots of other exciting tasks where farmers will appreciate the assistance of AI.
