Yes, that’s right. Cows!
The inaugural edition of the Nexus2050 tech conference is taking place on 26-27 June 2024 in the grand duchy, with . Ahead of the event, a series of interviews with innovative Ukrainian startups were organised with the support of , a Luxembourg think tank focused on innovation, best strategies and tools to support Ukraine’s economic recovery. First up: Howcow.
The team behind Howcow started working together during the covid pandemic to create Misu, an app that monitors health indicators and analyses data to provide medical prognoses and prevent diseases. “Then we got a request from the agriculture sector--from Italy, from Canada--if we could provide our solution for people for preventing diseases and health monitoring, but for cows,” Howcow COO Dmytro Kruhlov told Delano during an interview. “We, of course, said: ‘we cannot do this.’ But after long research, we found that, yeah, we can do this. It’s pretty possible and will have a big impact.”
With approximately 270m dairy cows in the world, according to the World Wildlife Fund, the market is sizeable. When cows are in poor health, this can lead to decreased milk yields, lower birth rates and shorter lifespans, said Kruhlov, as well as less revenue for farmers. Inaccurate breeding timing can also cause stress for cows, conception issues and additional manual labour for farmers.
Here’s where Howcow’s solution comes in.
From Apple watches to the AI-powered CRM
Members of the Howcow team mostly had educational backgrounds on the technical side--in mathematics or computer science--so the first challenge was to figure out how to implement their knowledge to help animals and to find partners with veterinary experience. But “we found the right people to research, to grow.”
At the beginning, they put Apple watches on the cows’ legs in order to track their activity, Kruhlov explained with a laugh, before developing their “cow relationship manager” device. It has sensors that can monitor activity or temperature, for instance, and is connected to an “AI-powered CRM system, which analyses all this data, gives predictions for farmers, notifies when the window of fertility starts and additionally shows real-time behaviour, shows potential health problems.” Cows can only get pregnant during a certain period, so by tracking this window, farmers can better plan their breeding.
The solution is “very simple” and “user-friendly,” he added. Farmers don’t need any additional training or special technology. They just have to put the CRM device on the cow’s neck and information can be retrieved online. Results from its first pilot indicate that it can boost a farm’s efficiency by up to 25%.
“We’ve gotten first contracts in Ukraine,” said Kruhlov, and “I think in the near future, we will start our expansion to Europe, to maybe Asia and maybe the United States.”
Positive environmental impact
What should investors and people in Luxembourg know, and what are they hoping to get out of Nexus?
It’s not only about money, Kruhlov said. “Yes, we like bringing significant efficiency using the latest technologies, AI. Farmers can adapt CRM to their needs, like CRM adapts to each cow.” It’s also about sustainability, having a positive environmental impact and improving cows’ lives and health, he argued. The “cow relationship manager” can be implemented in any market, language or country, and the startup is even looking at other animals, like horses or chickens.
Volodymyr Shevchuk, CEO of Howcow, added that they’re also interested in networking with firms, investors and potential partners, as well as seeing how many people are ready to invest in the food or agriculture industries and what their main reasons are.
At the French technology conference Vivatech in May, he noted, there was an area dedicated to agriculture and sustainable tech. Are the main motivations decreasing costs, increasing production or looking for ways to deploy new tech? Agriculture is a rather “traditional business” and farms may try to solve issues with more people or management. Forward-looking solutions like Howcow, whose devices are made locally in Ukraine, Shevchuk added, can help relieve and solve these problems. It’s good for the planet, for cows and for business.
Ahead of Nexus2050, Ukraineplatform has also organised a Ukrainian startup ecosystem pitch for the to address investors’ potential concerns and promote Ukrainian founders before their meetings with business angels during the Nexus conference. Find out more about , or check out the .