Congratulations to the nine startups enrolled in the Agrytech Accelerator Program, selected to move forward into the third and final phase of the program. During this next phase of incubation and growth, Berytech will continue to support these startups for the next five months offering them the technical and business support needed, as well as matching grants of up to $20,000, to scale up their business and become investment ready. The program will expose selected businesses to scaling up and go-to-market strategies, fundraising and term sheets, negotiation, and legal frameworks.
Meet the Shortlisted Teams for Phase Three:
Agricom: is a digital platform enabling smoother cooperation among the different players in the agricultural sector to increase efficiencies across the value chain.
Beirut Roma Beirut: (previously known as Pasta) is manufacturing fresh pasta in Lebanon utilizing local egg and wheat produce.
CrowdFarming Lebanon: is a crowdfunding platform aiming to provide farmers with an alternative source of funding as opposed to traditional financial institutions.
Dooda Solutions: is restoring the soil ecosystem using natural-based fertilizers ‘vermicompost’ from their worm farms.
Grains & Pulses (Fast Freekeh): is revolutionizing freekeh, the traditional Lebanese super grain, making it fast-to-cook and accessible to people interested in healthy food and people with special diets.
NaturaChem: is a startup working on the recovery of polyphenols from agri-food byproducts. The obtained natural powder can be used in many cosmetic and food industries to replace expensive and synthetic molecules.
XTend: is developing a patch made from organic, locally sourced materials that can be added to fruit packaging to extend the product shelf life.
YummiTummi: (previously known as Buddha Gourmand) is producing a baby food line based on the Middle Eastern diet that is healthy, nutritious and additive-free.
Zubabati: is a women-led startup that farms the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) to produce local and sustainable poultry and fish feed alternatives and organic fertilizer.
Highlights of Phase Two
As the sector faces compound challenges, agri-food entrepreneurs in Lebanon are capitalizing on the innovative aspect of their businesses. “Twelve startups piloted their MVP, and six went to market to test their product with customers. The phase was intense and the external situation in the country was discouraging – yet the progress done was impressive!” comments Yara Hamdar, Accelerator Program Senior Coordinator. She added: “Over a period of four months, startups worked on several verticals, including product development, branding, marketing, go-to-market strategy, and financials; we are now going to support them to become investment-ready in the next phase.”
The second phase ended with an intensive immersion trip to the Netherlands for five startups in collaboration with Wageningen University and StartLife as part of the acceleration program.
In addition, the startups attended several workshops and one-on-one clinics receiving experts’ advice on how to build and launch a minimum viable product (MVP), Marketing; Co-Founder Agreement; IP Rights; Food Safety; Finance; Sales Pitch Power Session; Raising Capital; Product Planning; Go-to-Market; and Branding, among others. Subject experts included Amal Abdallah, Partner and Country Manager at SABA IP; Andre Abi Awad, Founder of Entreprenegy; Fidele El Achkar, Founder and CEO of Foodsight, a startup that graduated from the Agrytech Batch III program; Rania Zeidan, Managing Partner at Zeidan & Associates Attorneys at Law; and from WIDER Group: Joe Moarkech, General Manager; Chadi Snaifer, Commercial Consultant; Jean-Luc Hbeiliny, Business Marketing Consultant; Etienne Mahfouz, SME and Training Manager.
The Agrytech Accelerator Program
Through the fourth edition of the Agrytech Accelerator Program and with support from the Kingdom of The Netherlands, Berytech continues to source the top startups with disruptive innovations in the Agri-Food sector and provide them with the adequate technical and business resources as well as community support to scale their ideas into successful businesses with global impact. Berytech developed the Agrytech accelerator as a yearly program which includes a validation of market phase over two-months, an acceleration phase – where the startups work for four-months on building their minimum viable product (MVP) in order to get traction, and finally, a five-month incubation and growth phase, from which they graduate investment-ready, and with matching capital. Learn more about the Agrytech Accelerator Program.
