Agriculture is complex, and the AgLaunch farmer network helps early-stage startups get traction
It could be said success in business is driven by timing and people. And AgLaunch provides agricultural startups with the nexus of both.
With its AgLaunch365 accelerator, early-stage startups have programming paired with the coast to coast network of AgLaunch farmers.
It’s a story Michael Rhys and the team at Barnwell Bio experienced firsthand. Their company spun out of the same technology platform used for municipal waste monitoring during COVID-19, except they are applying it to biosecurity and animal welfare.
Rhys says there is no other program like AgLaunch in existence.
“The farmer buy-in was really important to us along with the product feedback and guidance farmers can give us on the feature roadmap we want to add to Barnwell,” he says. “What’s great about the AgLaunch network is the level of inclusion along the way and the how the farmer network shares their feedback in real time and we’re able to iterate with them quickly because of their candid insights.”
Barnwell Bio collects aggregate samples from animal byproducts, analyzes them for a broad array of pathogens and then shares the assessment of potential health risks with farmers and their veterinarians.
“We see an opportunity to change the sentiment in animal health from being reactive to proactive,” Rhys says.
Just as the startups receive benefits from the AgLaunch programming, as do the farmers. Fundamental to its approach it getting startups on farms in field trials, the farmers who take part in those field trials can earn an equity stake in the companies.
One of the original farmer members to the AgLaunch network is Grant Norwood, a Tennessee row crop farmer. He was part of the farmer network who proved the concept of Aglaunch earlier this year and cashed out an early investment in an irrigation technology startup.
“Farming is a business that doesn’t follow all the business models,” Norwood says. “And if you are coming from non-ag background, the farmer is your insight early on to how to best finish development and finish designing the product. We share knowledge to how ag markets work and to purchasing models. For a startup company it can be a big jump ahead to have that insight that would otherwise take them several years on their own.
Norwood has done field trials with sensors, hardware, and biological startups. And he’s proud to be part of the network he says is “where inventors meet farmers to solve agriculture’s problems.”
While the group started in Tennessee, it has since expanded into the midwest and pacific northwest.
“We’re a diverse group growing a lot of different crops and raising a lot of different livestock. But we are like-minded in helping startup companies bring their ideas to agriculture,” Norwood says.
AgLaunch has officially opened applications for the 2026 AgLaunch365 Accelerator. Applications are due by September 15, 2025.
AgLaunch365 aims to provide the proving ground startups need to help reshape how food is grown, animal are raises and land is stewarded.
AG WEB