From left: Daniel Izquierdo, Tara McElligott and Sean Smith. Image: Micron Agritech
Judged the best start-up at last year’s Innovation Arena Awards, Micron Agritech helps vets conduct on-site testing on animals using smartphones.
Irish start-up Micron Agritech has secured €2.7m in funding to expand its rapid animal health testing technology across the Irish and UK markets.
A spin-out of TU Dublin, Micron Agritech was founded in 2019 Daniel Izquierdo, Tara McElligott and Sean Smith. It has developed a parasite testing kit for animals that allows veterinarians to conduct on-site testing using their mobile phones and get rapid results.
“Our goal is to make our platform accessible to vets across the globe, starting with penetration across the Irish and UK markets,” said CEO Izquierdo.
“[This] will combat the build-up of medication resistance, while giving farmers and vets tools to monitor animal health and improve the lives of their animals while increasing productivity.”
Its latest invention, the Rapid Liver Fluke Test, allows farmers to easily test livestock for liver fluke through an app that uses AI to deliver results within minutes. This can help farmers dealing with livestock liver fluke infections, which can often incur high treatment expenses, reduce yield and raise animal welfare concerns.
Part of the Dogpatch 2050 cohort for this year, Micron Agritech was judged the best start-up at Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Arena Awards, which took place ahead of the National Ploughing Championships last year.
In May 2021, Micron Agritech was one of two winners of a Welsh hackathon focused on agritech. In December 2020, it raised €500,000 in seed funding from animal health company Bimeda, agritech venture capital fund The Yield Lab Europe and Enterprise Ireland.
Micron Agritech’s latest funding round was co-led by ACT VC, Atlantic Bridge and Yield Lab Europe.
“We are delighted to support the Micron Agritech Team on their mission to use AI-powered computer vision to revolutionise animal health and increase food sustainability,” said Dominik Leisi, a senior investment associate at Atlantic Bridge.
“Since spinning out from TU Dublin, Tara, Daniel and Sean have built an excellent foundation on which to expand internationally to address the huge issue of overuse of anti-parasitic medication.”
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