PerPlant is Using AI Cameras to Reduce Pesticide Usage

In the end, Rasmus Emil Hansen and his three siblings didn’t take over his Christmas tree farm in Denmark as he’d dreamt. Hansen did, however, go on to build PerPlant, a company that could help small farm owners like his dad be more efficient.

The Copanhagen-based agriculture automation startup was founde in 2022. The company builds AI cameras with two lenses that attach to tractors. These devices process the information they gather on edge, before incorporating historical and satellite data to tell the tractor where and how much fungicide or fertilizer to spray.

PerPlant’s cameras are designed to be installed on tractors farmers already own, in as little as 30 minutes. The company claims they can cut pesticide use by up to 90%. PerPlant recently announced a €1 million ($1.15 million) seed round in May led by local angel investors.

Hansen told A3 that the company decided to build something that worked with a farmer’s existing tech, as opposed to a standalone smart tractor, after speaking with farmers themselves. The team found that there were plenty of full-stack solutions already available, but many farmers couldn’t afford them or didn’t want to spend the funds on new machinery.

“We thought, okay, we need to build something that is easier to scale on more hectares,” Hansen said. “It needed to be easier to use for farmers, it needed to be low cost, and it needed to solve its specific problems in the field. So that's how we came around with PerPlant.”

ROI Calculator

Discover the potential cost savings of robotic automation over a 20-year system life

This calculator compares your current manual labor costs against the total cost of owning and operating a robotic system over its 20-year lifespan.

EXPLORE TODAY

While Hansen didn’t end up working on his father’s Christmas tree farm, he always knew he wanted to make his way back to the agriculture industry. After founding a student tutoring business in New York,and wrapping up his masters, he decided it was time to return to agriculture but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do.

“I wanted to go back to my roots and do something that is actually more meaningful and more important, impact wise, something I care truly about,” Hansen said. “How can we help farmers prepare better food in a more sustainable way and use new technologies to do it?”

He joined the Antler accelerator program to help find a co-founder and narrow down his potential ideas. He met Sumod Nandanwar, now co-founder and CTO, who had years of experience building drones, winning robotic fights and was a “big nerd” when it came to building hardware, Hansen said.

Once they learned about farmers’ most pressing problems, they turned to Nandanwar’s prowess to start building the cameras. The company has since operated for three seasons and is working with farms across Denmark, Holland, the Baltics and South America. The company hopes to keep refining its tech as it looks to start scaling.

“I think some of the easiest things you can do is to underestimate what it actually takes to be a farmer, like there's so many factors they have to take into account to make the decisions,” Hansen said. “It’s not just technology and pricing and weather, and a lot of things. [We have] a real deep respect for the work. I think to be able to solve the pains, you need to be very close to them, be with them out there in the tractor, sit with them, talk with them, hear what they say.”