The year 2018 was a busy one for Valley Ventures Fall 2017 Cohort Graduate GroGuru. The company raised investment funds, continued to sell product, and brought a CEO on board. All great news for a business venture that started with an innovative idea: to help farmers answer when to irrigate and how much to irrigate in order to help them increase their crop yield and quality and reduce resource costs by using high tech soil sensors that provide real-time access to field data via mobile devices.

If things go according to plan, 2019 will be even busier. Their latest AgTech breakthrough technology is an all-wireless soil monitoring system that enables permanent installs of soil sensors even for crops where current sensors have to be removed to enable operations such as harvesting and tilling.

GroGuru’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Farooq Anjum, shared with us some of the key things that have made this rapid success possible including several connections and events at Fresno State, and according to Anjum, the Valley Ventures Cohort has provided great benefits including direct connections to customers, a variety of speakers and representatives of the water, energy, and Ag industries.

“I came to one of the events, a Water Cluster meeting,” Anjum said “and met Bill Green from the Center for Irrigation Technology. The relationship with Green and the GroGuru team helped set grounds for creation of soil sensors that are more cost efficient that ever before.”

Attendees at events sponsored by the Water, Energy, and Technology (WET) Center and Valley Ventures has allowed Anjum the opportunity to add to the number of people that have seen GroGuru’s technology so far.

“Thanks to all of the support from Valley Ventures, Fresno State and CIT.” Anjum said. “It was just me out there until about six months back, trying to interest investors and sign up customers and I appreciate all the help that I received from all of you.