The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Sep 2019

Nectar, founded in 2016 by Marc-André Roberge, Xavier de Briey, and Evan Henry, offers a management platform for commercial beekeepers and crop growers. The company uses in-hive sensors and artificial intelligence to provide data-driven insights to help beekeepers raise healthy hives and help growers optimize their pollination supply chain. Products include the Beecon sensor (measuring temperature, relative humidity, audio, and movement), the BeeHub gateway which transmits hive data and serves as an on-site weather station, and the BeeTag visual representation of hives. The Nectar portal also offers tools for queen presence detection, digital yard maps, population trends, hive security, and mortality-rate tracking. Nectar plans to grow its presence in North America, expand research and development with partners such as Agriculture Canada, the National Bee Diagnostic Centre, and the Centre de Recherche en Santé Animale à Deschambault, and to expand its team. Financially, the company has received support from Montreal accelerators Centech, Impact8, and FounderFuel (raising $100,000 in 2017) and recently closed a $1.1 million CAD seed round.