Egistic — a startup that creates a user-friendly IT infrastructure for farmers

Zhandos Kerimkulov, 35 years old, founder and CEO of Egistic

Where we started

Egistic is an AgriTech startup. We develop applications for farmers, primarily viewing them as businesspeople. Today, agronomists' paper logs are being replaced by digital mobile applications. If previously all record-keeping was done using tags, now they are being replaced by GPS trackers. We present all this as a comprehensive solution and create a SaaS product for our users.

The first thing we started with was satellite imagery. Farmers have large land holdings, and visiting all of them is labor-intensive. Therefore, every three to five days, we generate photographic images that allow farmers to analyze the heterogeneity of their lands and address issues in a timely manner. Today, we have expanded into IoT—tracking equipment operating hours—and integrated agricultural accounting. Around this core, we are building an ecosystem of services: a B2B marketplace, consulting services, an HR service, and equipment rental.

As an IT specialist, it was not difficult for me to assemble the team: we started from the premises of Nazarbayev University, where we found our employees. In 2019, we had a technical launch, but we began generating revenue closer to 2021. Each season, we grow three times larger than the previous year.

About the founders

Before the startup, I worked at a space agency, managing spacecraft. I was a Team Lead, and we received images from satellites. These images were stored but not processed. I began studying why they were not being processed and what happened to them next. Through this analysis, I discovered in which fields these images could be applied. It turned out that 20% of the World Bank's land portfolio is located in the CIS region, and it was obvious that these lands were used for agriculture. Thus, my journey began. I am the sole founder of our company.

Target audience

Our target audience consists of agribusiness owners, agronomists, accountants, dispatchers, and engineers. That is, we do not consider only the founders. We strive to ensure that our product is useful for their employees and simplifies their daily routines.

Partners include distribution companies and agrochemical firms. We simplify their lives by enabling them to analyze their territories, maintain analytical records of their client base, and view their clients' history.

Farmers usually purchase everything on credit. Now, with the help of our application, it is possible to conduct farm scoring: viewing how much land is registered to a particular farmer, how many pastures there are, which crops they sow, what the average yield is, and whether there is a decline or increase in yield.

Acceleration and incubation programs

We underwent acceleration at Nazarbayev University and at ABC Incubation.

In 2018-2019, the startup was at the idea stage. Then we began gathering documents and submitting them to various institutions to seek funding. We won several grants. Since then, we have started generating revenue and achieved Product-Market Fit. Now we need to create scale, and that is why we are attracting investors.

Challenges

We had a difficult path because, first of all, we operate in the B2B segment. Secondly, this is a startup in the agricultural sector, where things are quite conservative. In the early stages, not everyone understood what satellite imagery was, but today every second person knows what it is and how to apply it.

I was told that our project was not suitable for venture capital because the payback period is very long. But there is a market and opportunities. That is where we focused our efforts.

Achievements in 2022

Our main achievement is the satisfaction of our users. The fact that entrepreneurs who have signed contracts with us renew them is the most important thing for us.

Also, for the last three years, we have not participated in any battles or competitions, as we have been focused on our users, solving their tasks, and addressing daily challenges in bootstrap mode. Therefore, we are rarely seen at various events. But this is not because we are uninterested; rather, most such events take place in the summer, which is the busiest period for us. If anything happens in the winter, we definitely participate.

More than 200 farms use our application. In terms of area, this is more than 1,500,000 hectares.

Plans for 2023

We are in the first stage. Having worked for five years, we achieved Product-Market Fit because, in the agricultural sector, you have a limited amount of time for testing hypotheses. Tests take one to two weeks. Then, for an entire season, you analyze the results and think about how to improve them, preparing the product for the next test. We have already passed this stage and today are addressing almost all business needs related to farm management.

Our next stage is to create more useful content in the application for users, fill the marketplace, and subsequently transform us from an AgriTech company into a FinTech company, when we can offer our users online lending and online installments with full scoring of farmers' activities. Currently, second-tier banks are reluctant to give loans to our users because it is agriculture, which can be risky. Thanks to scoring, we will be able to show how a particular farmer operates, their work dynamics, which will allow us to simplify this process.