Summary

• Smart Farm Agritech is a precision farming, technology and food security company driven by AI and robotics expertise from the United Kingdom and Malaysian agricultural knowledge and experience.
• SFA provides farmers, plantation owners and government bodies with a powerful combination of satellite and drone crop health surveillance technology, AI software applications for pest and disease management, and modern precision farming solutions, which increase crop yields, cut costs, improve soil fertility and reduce dependency on manual labour; improving the income of farmers and saving them money.
• SFA is consistently winning new business in our local development market of Tanjung Karang, Selangor.
• We recently won a collective farming service contract with a local rice miller.
• Plus we are in advanced conversations with a number of government bodies about using our satellite and drone surveillance services for food security purposes.
• One of our founders was CEO of Malaysia’s National Farmers Organisation (NAFAS) and Director General of the Farmers’ Organisation Authority (LPP), so we are well connected for business growth in Malaysia and APAC.
• The key to our success now is scaling-up business development and operational capacity; creating a Drone Pilot Academy to meet human resource requirements; and maintaining technological leadership with continued AI and satellite application development.
• We seek RM 3.5 million in investment to fund these activities.
• Food security is a global issue today and agritech is a booming sector and Smart Farm Agritech represents an excellent medium-to-long-term investment in both.
• Our UK-driven technology is way ahead of the competition in APAC and we are excellently placed to establish a big business in the rice and oil palm markets of the region; and this makes us a unique opportunity for shrewd investors.
• A trade sale in 2027/8 is our planned exit strategy for investors.

Problem

We have identified the following key challenges that farmers and government are trying to solve and our business is designed to address:

• High crop yield losses driven by pest and disease attacks and nutrition issues.
• A high dependency of Malaysian farmers on foreign manual labour, which is inattentive and unreliable and in short supply due to Covid measures.
• Loss of soil biodiversity and fertility through chemical overuse.
• Inefficient and labour intensive farming practices.
• Low national rice paddy farm productivity.
• A national rice food security threat created by production deficit.
• Low adoption rates of precision farming technology by rural farmers.

Solution

Smart Farm Agritech’s precision farming AI technology and expert advice is the solution all of these challenges:

• Satellite and drone crop surveillance with AI analysis by Crop Doctor, our revolutionary new software application that identifies pest and disease attacks and nutrient problems quickly.
• Facilitating in time data-driven crop and soil management decisions that generate better crop yields.
• Early detection of pests and nutrient deficiencies in precise locations means early targeted treatment; so less pesticide and fertiliser is used, which lowers farmers’ costs and improves the quality of the soil.
• Improving national food security through increased farm productivity.
• Facilitating technology adoption and associated technology job creation in rural communities.

Smart Farm Agritech combines satellite, drone and AI technologies to offer three distinct services that also work in harmony with each other. Giving us the flexibility to service small-scale farmers with an affordable product solution or government bodies with an integrated product approach.

The three services are:

1. Watchman Satellite Crop Health Early Warning System
2. Crop Doctor Pest, Disease and Nutrient Deficiency Diagnosis System
3. Smart Farmer: Crop Maintenance Precision Farming Service

1. Watchman Satellite Crop Health Early Warning System 

• Watchman is our satellite surveillance system built by our team of UK experts.
• It uses advanced and specialised AI and superior computer science to determine:
• Crop identity
• Growth rate
• Crop health
• Orbiting the earth it provides an early warning system that identifies potential crop health problems for investigation and diagnosis by our specialist drone teams or by farm and plantation managers.
• Our AI software provides unparalleled detail and accuracy with the capability of measuring individual field growth and health profiles.
• Growth and NDVI anomalies identified by our specialised AI software will trigger early warning health alerts.
• Superior to competitors that do not have our advanced technology and generally rely solely on NDVI data, which lacks the clarity and detail of our system.
• Accurate food security and agricultural planning intelligence for the whole of Malaysia or anywhere in the world.

2. Crop Doctor Pest, Disease and Nutrient Deficiency Diagnosis System

• Once a health warning alarm is triggered by the Watchmen System our specialist drone teams equipped with Crop Doctor AI diagnose the problem at the field level.
• Crop Doctor is our proprietary Pest and Disease AI Identification model.
• Field-tested, reliable pest disease diagnoses and crop health monitoring AI that works with a high 85 to 99.8% accuracy level.
• Works in real-time without internet connectivity.
• This is important for rural farming conditions where connectivity can be bad and intermittent.
• Detailed diagnoses and location data allows for:

- Right Quantity
- Right Place
- Right Time
precision farming treatment of emerging pest, disease and nutrition issues.

• Reducing chemical use, which protects soil quality and fertility and lowers costs.

Powerful data

• Our Watchman Satellite Early Warning System plus Crop Doctor diagnosis changes the game for government and farmers.
• Providing them with data that puts them in charge and giving them a new ability to make informed data-driven decisions and advise farming communities.

3. Smart Farmer: Crop Maintenance Precision Farming Service

• The Smart Farmer service is a mix of drone crop spraying and surveillance, satellite surveillance and AI analysis that farmers subscribe to.
• We identify infested, infected and malnourished areas quickly.
• Our drone teams deliver pesticides and fertilisers to identified problem zones precisely.
• Early problem identification and targeted treatment reduces impact of problem and the amount of pesticide/ fertiliser needed to treat.
• This lowers crop yield loss and lowers farmers’ costs meaning higher yields and higher income for farmers.
• The Smart Farmer service also helps our farmers end their dependency on foreign manual labour and ultimately improves the nation's food security.

Traction

The Smart Farmer service has received a very positive response with paddy farmers from our local development market of Tanjung Karang, Malaysia. Where we recently also won a collective farming service contract with a local rice miller. Plus we are in advanced conversations with a number of government bodies about using our satellite and drone surveillance services.

These fee-paying clients have validated our business model and demonstrate readiness to purchase our technology-based farming solutions.

Customers

Smart Farm Agritech has three main customer segments:

1. Small and large-scale rice farmers and oil palm plantation owners.
2. Data purchasers: particularly government bodies, and also insurance companies, financial institutions, industry suppliers and organisations that have a need for accurate crop data.
3. Farming collectives such as jurisdictional farming cooperatives, farmers’ organisations and contract farming operations.

Business Model

Smart Farm Agritech generates revenue in four different ways:

(1) Crop Data Services
Subscription revenue from our satellite early warning system and Crop Doctor services.

(2) Crop Management Fees
Subscription revenue from our Smart Farmer crop maintenance service. 

(3) Drone Services
We earn a per hectare fee from crop spraying with our Drone-on-Demand service.

(4) Pesticide and Fertiliser Sales
Pay-per-use sales focusing on Effective Microorganisms and natural remedies.

Market

Our home market is Malaysia with the next key growth market being Indonesia, then across APAC and internationally. The market opportunity is vast.

Competition

Our research indicates we are uniquely positioned in bringing UK AI and robotics expertise to the rice paddy and oil palm market. In summary, competitors we consider technically competitive tend to focus on large-scale US and European agriculture markets, whereas competitors we consider to have similar market access tend to lack our technical capability.
This gives us a competitive advantage that will remain for the forseeable future.

Funding

After we successfully developing and commercialising our game-changing agricultural AI technology over the last year, we are now raising up to RM3.5 million from investors to build on this success:

1. To scale-up business development and operational capacity and create of Drone Pilot Academy to meet human resource requirements.
2. To maintain leadership with continued pest, disease and nutrient management AI, satellite early warning system software and application product development.
3. To purchase drones, pick-ups, batteries and other assets needed to service an expanding client base.

Vision

Our vision is to make rice and oil palm farmers around the world more productive and profitable.

As the food security crisis continues to grow globally, we want to empower farmers to be as efficient and productive as possible to meet growing demand through smart technology, improved yields, reduced labour and lower costs.

Through our expansion beyond Malaysia to Indonesia, the rest of Asia Pacific and the world, we hope to capture significant market share to achieve a considerable valuation for a trade sale or IPO exit in the future.

Investors

The company was incorporated in February 2021 by co-founders Dato’ Paduka Dr. A. Rahim Bin Rahmat and Mr. Cory D’Abreo Abdullah with a single angel investor, who invested RM 350,000 to fund initial AI technology development.

Founders

Dato’ Paduka Dr. A. Rahim Bin Rahmat, Chairman and Co-founder

Malaysian national with over 50 years experience at the forefront of national agriculture development and successfully developing mechanisms for introducing new technologies to farmers.

A long career of national service serving as CEO of the National Farmers Organisation (NAFAS) and Director General of the Farmers’ Organisation Authority (LPP). Then academically as a professor at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) lecturing on agrotechnology.

Cory D’Abreo Abdullah, Chief Executive and Co-founder

UK national with 25 years of experience growing new businesses, plus connections for expansion in Latin America, Africa and Asia. But still a biologist at heart with a BSc in Marine and Freshwater Biology from Queen Mary College, London. 10 years spent as an entrepreneur, 8 years of which in SE Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia) and 2 years in Chile.

Strong track record of launching profit centres and creating new business models. Leads from the front and builds teams that deliver on development plans and beat targets.

Team

Chris Knight, Chief Technology Officer

UK national with a degree in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, where he specialised in Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) design. Chris has worked on various space and defense projects such as Galileo and agriculture AI development projects for a number of years.

Chris’s current PhD research is investigating how weather patterns can be used to explain geographic and temporal variability in crop yields and aims to identify if weather patterns can also be used to predict multi-seasonal crop yield.

Saiful Baharim Bin Kasnon, Paddy Agricultural Technician

Saiful is a Malaysian national with a 25-year career in agriculture, which started as a paddy farmer in 1996 before joining Malaysia’s Department of Agriculture in 1999.

He is a paddy farming specialist with an intimate connection and understanding of rural paddy farming and farmers. Saiful has developed courses and advises farmers on paddy field preparation, land leveling, paddy management, usage of fertiliser and pesticide, and proper planting for the paddy seeds and seedlings.

Nur Syafiqah Hanis Binti Saiful Baharim, Operations Coordinator

Malaysian national with a Bachelor degree in Environmental Science and Technology who is enthusiastic and passionate about improving the quality of life of local people and sees AI and smart technology in the agricultural sector as a means of achieving this for farmers.

Hanis has been with SFA since its start and is inspired by the drive and ambition of the company.

Aiman Bin Saiful Baharim and Mohd Noor Azzahir Bin Ramli, Drone Pilots

Recruited from the local community where they operate in Tanjung Karang, Aiman and Azzahir are qualified and experienced drone pilots who have been successfully delivering our services to farmers in Tanjung Karang.

DISCLAIMERS

• No shares will be allotted or issued based on this document after six months from the closing of the offer period.
• This issue, offer or invitation for the offering is a proposal not requiring authorisation of the Securities Commission under section 212(8) of the CMSA 2007.
• This document has not been reviewed by the Securities Commission Malaysia. The Securities Commission does not recommend nor assumes responsibility for any information including any statement, opinion or report disclosed in relation to this fund raising exercise and makes no representation as to its accuracy or completeness. The Securities Commission expressly disclaims any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the information disclosed.