Agroop

Market

Target market

1ST PHASE | Through Agroop Operational + Stoock:

Farmers, namely the younger ones that may have a higher propensity to use technology and a more professional and sophisticated management mindset.

2ND PHASE | Through Agroop Cooperation:

Agricultural consultants, like agronomic engineers and agronomic technicians that are working in consultanting companies, farmer's associations and cooperatives.

3RD PHASE | Through the big data generated:

Agricultural and other corporations, as for example phytopharmaceutical producers (Syngenta, Bayer...), retailers (Costco...), bank and insurance companies (Deustche Bank...), government entities, R&D centers, the United Nations (FAO), etc...

Characteristics of target market

TAM | Total addressable market:

*2 This is already a proven market which is growing and according the international global food policy research institute, the total world agricultural public expenditure is currently (2014) valued at over $500 billion.

SAM | Serviceable available market:

*3 From this vast market and taking into account only the target countries that Agroop wants to reach in the next 5 years, namely, Spain, Italy, Australia, France, Germany, UK and US, the SAM should be of approx. $50 billion.

SOM | Serviceable obtainable market:

*4 ES Research shows us, that agricultural companies in Portugal spend on average, 21% of their budget in "Other goods and services", the slice in which we believe Agroop fits. For this reason, we estimate that the core market, based on this % applied to our target countries, is valued at approx. $10 billion globally.

Sources:
*2 | 2017 global food policy report from IFPRI.
*3 | 2017 global food policy report from IFPRI.
*4 | ES sectorial research.

Interesting facts: According to the World Bank, since 1971 the value added in agriculture has been increasing by 2,6% on average each year. Trade in agricultural commodities is also expected to expand considerably. For example, net cereal imports into the developing countries would increase almost three-fold to reach nearly 300 million tonnes by 2050 (High Level Expert Forum, 2009). What's more, the world population is expected to continue growing, and we can easily expect that the agricultural sector will have to keep up with new demand.

Marketing strategy

Our marketing strategy is based in the following main channels/activities:

1) We believe even Stoock (hardware) is highly scalable. It can be sent in the mail to anywhere. It is made to be easily installed by the untrained end-user (farmer), allowing us to not be limited to markets where we have local presence.

2) Agroop Cooperation has been developed to allow us to build a more efficient commercial approach. Instead of selling our solution (Agroop Operational + Stoock) individually to each farmer, we intend to create partnerships with key actors, agronomic engineers and technicians in order to provide a "group package solution" to their associates or clients. However to motivate these agents and convince them to be our prescribers, we are developing an added value software - Agroop Cooperation - at no added cost to them, to make their lives easier and to allow them to centralise information and provide useful insights into their associates/clients. The more there are end farmers who use our system, the more advantageous it will be for these agronomic agents/ key actors.

3) Agroop's team is also very focused in developing and deploying pilots with the support of opinion-makers in the target countries mentioned. Through this approach we are convinced we will be able to reduce our learning curve, find new added value paths and create credibility and awareness in the agricultural community.

Apart from that, we are continually testing other inbound and outbound channels in order to increase our conversion rate and our revenue.

Competition strategy

Based on our observation of the competitive landscape, these are the main differentiation factors:

1) COMPLETE RANGE:

There are some worldwide competitors, however we believe Agroop is different and unique, thanks to the broad scope of its product offering, collecting on the one hand operational information (through software), and physical parameters on the other (through hardware). This is very relevant in our opinion because we should be able provide more complete and meaningful insights not only to our customers but also to other agricultural agents. The aim is to have more manual and automatic parameters in order to build an efficient big data analysis system, since Agroop operates in both the management and in the monitoring business streams.

2) SCALABILITY:

To create an unique value proposition it is critical to deliver a complete package capable of creating added value for a large spectrum of customers and in that sense, it is very important to build something very scalable and mass market orientated. Thanks to our products characteristics, from this perspective we believe we will have a clear advantage, because even our hardware (Stoock) can be easily shipped and installed by the farmer, wherever he or she may be. To our knowledge, the vast majority of our competitors that are operating on the monitoring side are stuck with non-scalable hardware products, that may be difficult to install and to configure (they need local presence with people near the customer to setup and install).

3) SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE:

Management companies like Isagri (+15.000 users) aren't SaaS model based and therefore we believe the final cost of their solutions makes them only accessible to larger farmers.

4) USABILITY:

Another important point is related with the user interface and usability. Our team has a strong background in design and man-machine interface development which allows us to differentiate ourselves in user-friendliness. It's important to understand that we are still working in a conservative market and we believe that having the ability to build something intuitive and simple can be highly differentiating.