Developing fertiliser recommendation system: venture clienting between K+S and Cropt

Through its venture clienting model, RootCamp enables corporations to leverage startup innovation without equity involvement. By structuring and managing pilot projects, we accelerate implementation and create measurable business impact.

One such collaboration brought together K+S and Cropt, a Serbian agtech startup from RootCamp Batch #1. Over nearly twelve months, the partners co-developed a fertilizer recommendation system for the Ugandan market - demonstrating how structured corporate-startup partnerships can translate innovation into practical application.

Corporate Challenge

Both of the companies were facing their own challenges: K+S faced a lack of detailed market analysis and farmer feedback within its international markets, such as in Uganda. Cropt’s decision-support system lacked fertilizer recommendation, which hindered the applicability.

The Solution

Cropt and K+S worked to develop a fertiliser recommendation system in Uganda based on the predicted yield, fertiliser response models and local agronomic knowledge. Through the cooperation with a third party, EzyAgric, based in Uganda, coffee and maize fields are being identified to collect the system data, develop the model, and generate fertilizers recommendations.

Project Deliverables

The project aimed to develop a system for identifying coffee and maize fields in Uganda. Key objectives included achieving over 80% accuracy in field identification, as well as predicting crop yield and harvest dates. Additionally, the project focused on creating a fertilizer recommendation system based on predicted yields, fertilizer response models, and local agronomic knowledge. The final deliverable was a user-friendly platform to showcase the technology and its practical applications.

About Cropt

Cropt is an agtech start-up based in Novi Sad, Serbia. It began life as a spin-off from the BioSense Institute, the European Centre of Excellence for advanced technologies in sustainable agriculture. The company was established based on winning solutions from the Syngenta Crop Challenge 2017 and the Inspire Challenge 2018. It has grown into an AI and data science company and built long-standing partnerships with global players such as K+S and ClimateKIC. 

Looking to accelerate innovation within your organization?

With RootCamp’s venture clienting model, corporations can quickly evaluate and deploy startup solutions in a structured and low-risk way, without taking equity stakes. For organizations aiming to solve clearly defined business challenges through hands-on pilot projects, RootCamp provides the framework to make it happen.