The startup known as WeFly Agri was launched in January of this year. The startup uses drones coupled with mobile technology that allows them to map out and monitor land.
Users of the startup’s platform can gain access to proprietary software that monitors all the activity on their plantations.
The target audience for this startup includes landlords who are not on their property, live away from their farm property, or find it difficult to oversee everything.
Olivier Biley, the CEO of WeFly Agri, said, “Imagine you have hundreds of hectares where it is impossible to visit it in a single day.” The other choice you have that he explains is to trust the reports supplied by your plantation supervisor, which is not always as accurate or in-depth as you would like.
The startup gives farmer a third and superior option of allowing them to monitor their farms anytime they want remotely and effortlessly through a connection established with their mobile phones.
Biley said, “the main and most important gap we spotted was the information one. Farmers and plantation owners have almost no information about what is going on in their plantations, since most of them live in the cities.”
Despite a hard start during the startup’s lifetime, they initial uptake of the services that the startup provides has been good. WeFly Agri has signed a deal with the third biggest rubber company country-wide, Tropical Rubber Cote d’livoire.
The main difficulty we encountered was skepticism. People considered us dreamers, and our idea too advanced to materialize in Ivory Coast. However, thanks to the quality of our product, and the added value our clients perceived, it was quite easy to land our first contract,” said Biley.
So far, the startup is solely self-funded and plans only to expand further through the Ivory Coast for now. The startup earns its revenue by charging for the initial mapping and the subscriptions to its mobile platform.