Mega Green Accelerator: Cairo-Based Viridia Tech Aims To Help Farmers With Near Real-Time, Customized Recommendations And Actionable Insights "The Mega Green Accelerator is now assisting us in structuring and scaling our business, enabling us to build a solid reputation and leverage it effectively."
By Tamara Pupic
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The Mega Green Accelerator is an initiative by PepsiCo, one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, SABIC, a Riyadh-headquartered global diversified chemicals company, and 12 other strategic partners. In its inaugural 2024 edition, it selected eight startups to participate in the program, including Viridia Tech, a Cairo-based startup that offers a platform for crop analytics at scale for industrial agricultural companies.
The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change (COP27), which took place in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2023, proved to be a gamechanger for sustainability startups in Egypt, says Omar Elboghdady, co-founder and CEO of Viridia Tech, a Cairo-based startup that offers a platform for crop analytics at scale for industrial agricultural companies. "Since COP27, the startup scene in Egypt, particularly in the sustainability sector, has been thriving with support from both the public and private sectors," Elboghdady says. "There is a steadily growing market appetite for sustainability initiatives, increasingly accommodating a sustainability premium."
Elboghdady teamed up with Marwan Eltoukhy and Mohamed Elsawy to found Viridia Tech with an aim to address the challenges faced by commercial agriculture producers in optimizing their growing operations. "These challenges include improving resource efficiency for water, fertilizer, and pesticides consumption," Elboghdady explains. "Another challenge is the early detection of operational issues, such as heightened disease risk. Finally, there is a need and a challenge to forecast the crop yield to assist in effective resource planning."
To address such challenges, Viridia Tech collects satellite and meteorological data which are then utilized along with the company's context-sensitive artificial intelligence models to provide farmers with near real-time, customized recommendations and actionable insights. "These recommendations lead to improved crop yield, improved unit economics, and more sustainable agriculture practices," Elboghdady adds.
The fact that his startup has been bootstrapped to date has not prevented it from growing to a six-strong team who have succeeded at establishing a competitive edge in certain areas, such as in supporting farmers who grow potato and olive crops. However, their path has not been without obstacles. "The biggest challenge so far has been gaining the trust of farmers and agronomists, particularly when our recommendations differ from their traditional practices, which have not yet adapted to recent climate change effects," Elboghdady says. "The Mega Green Accelerator is now assisting us in structuring and scaling our business, enabling us to build a solid reputation and leverage it effectively."
As for the road ahead for the company, Elboghdady is being both proactive and optimistic. "We aim to expand our product offering by diversifying the crops we support, and enhancing the depth and coverage of our artificial intelligence models," he says. "Additionally, we are looking to increase our strategic partnerships, reach, and client portfolio. Our goal is to manage over 10,000 acres through our digital platform by 2025, while also planning for our seed fundraising round during this period."
'TREP TALK Viridia Tech's Omar Elboghdady shares his tips for entrepreneurs in the sustainability domain
Develop your idea within the local context "For a sustainable solution to succeed in Egypt, for example, you need to make sure that your idea ensuring that it has mass appeal to Egyptians."
Roll with the punches "The ability to adapt your problem-solving approach, solutions, and implementation strategies when new information arises will set your startup apart from the rest."
