What started as an experiment between Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking (Nedbank CIB) and South African-based pest and disease management company, Aerobotics, has been commercialised into a precision farming solution. As part of the Nedbank CIB Venture Capital mandate, Nedbank CIB has invested a minority equity interest to enhance its partnership with Cape Town-based Aerobotics, and the results are set to transform farming globally.
Aerobotics uses satellite and drone multi-spectral imagery and machine learning algorithms to survey and analyse crop health from the sky. Harnessing integrated AI, combined with an in-house analytics program, the solution not only allows farmers to detect pests and diseases in the earliest stages of development, but is also a cost-effective way for them to maximise crop yields and ensure better, data-driven decisions.
All these features and benefits are set to make the intuitive and highly affordable Aerobotics technology, the future platform of the global agricultural industry, to better serve farmers.
About Nedbank CIB Nedbank CIB is the wholesale banking arm of the Nedbank Group. The business offers the full spectrum of leading corporate and investment banking solutions through innovative transactional, funding and investment banking options characterised by fresh thinking. The scope of investment banking stretches from debt advisory and long-term project financing to equity trading and investment, as well as research.
About Aerobotics Aerobotics provides farmers around the world with world-leading early-detection pest and disease management systems for tree crops using drone and satellite data. The Aerobotics software, called Aeroview, links to the Aerobotics Aeroview Scout App, enabling farmers to use their smartphones to pinpoint problems on a tree-by-tree basis. With success achieved for over six million trees to date, Aerobotics is setting the standard for tree-crop analytics globally and innovating agricultural processes as we know them.
