Solinftec and the Solix Autonomous Platform: Reimagining Farming from First Principles

Index

1. Overview

2. Farming from First Principles

3. Stand Alone Sensing to “Living in the Field”

4. The Solix Platform Specs

5. The Solinftec Go-to-Market Strategy and Ag Retail

6. Go-to-Market and Input Manufacturers

7. Impact on Equipment Manufacturers

8. Final Thoughts

9. Appendix including pictures of the Solix Unit

Overview

In August of 2022, Solinftec announced a new product offering, the Solix.

Source: Solinftec. From left to right, Solix Scout, Solix Sprayer, and Solix Hunter. The unit I observed was the Solix Sprayer.

The Solix is a solar-powered autonomous platform that was not only equipped with cameras to acquire data about the field but also equipped with the capability to spray— specifically weeds that it identified within the crop.

In April of 2023, Solinftec announced the Hunter for the Solix platform, equipping the platform with the capabilities to lure, detect and eradicate insects autonomously using a specific light frequency.

The crazy part about this robotics platform is that it only travels at one mph— a far cry from the expectations that a piece of spray machinery has to travel at 12-16mph to be considered efficient throughout the industry today. My immediate question was: What is their train of thought with this?

Solinftec has fascinated me for a few years. First, they were a logistics software company working to optimize equipment efficiency and workflow for ag retails to sugar cane processors, and now they were shifting to an autonomous equipment manufacturing company.

I reached out to Solinftec in June to see if they would be open to giving me a demonstration of their Solix platform. They generously allowed me to join their team for a day in early August, sharing a demonstration of the Solix platform in a field in southern Indiana where I was allowed to talk with their engineers, product teams, and executive leaders about what they have built and how they will progress it in the future.

What stands out to me, and why I think you should care as an agribusiness professional, is that Solinftec’s new concept can potentially displace the sprayer as we know it, change how crop protection manufacturers go to market, and establish new services for retailers.

The shift could impact the entire ag value chain. Understanding their approach and technology is valuable no matter where you operate in the ag value chain.

Farming from First Principles

My first experience with anyone associated with Solinftec was a virtual conversation in 2020 with one of their investors, Mario Portela of Circularis Partners.

When the Cicularis investment in Solinftec came up during our conversation, Mario said something that has since stood out to me about Solinftec:

This sounds like a basic concept. But it isn’t. Most companies build a product and then indefinitely focus on selling that product into every corner of the market.

Solinftec started in 2007 in Brazil and experienced a solid product-market fit with sugar cane processors before expanding to more mainstream areas of Brazilian agriculture, such as corn and soybean farming in the Motto Grosso region through fleet efficiency and optimization software.

In 2019 Solinftec expanded to the United States.

I can count on one hand the number of agtech start-ups that have successfully taken their business from Brazil to North America (or vice versa).

If Solinftec had taken the same product and the same assumptions to North America, they would have floundered. Agricultural problems and practices are very regionalized, which makes their approach of asking questions to inform and guide their expansion uniquely suited for success in the agriculture industry.

Starting with questions is a component of reasoning from first principles.

The concept and term of first principles was initially popularized by Elon Musk, who famously has illustrated thinking from first principles when it comes to launching rockets to space and electrifying the car.

During an interview with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Musk commented what he attributes this success to:

Thinking from first principles stems from three simple (but not easy) steps:

First, principles thinking helps develop a unique worldview that enables people or teams to innovate and solve difficult problems that nobody else can even fathom.

Once you’ve identified and broken down your problems or assumptions into their most fundamental truths, you can create new insightful solutions from scratch.

What Solinftec has done is applied first principles thinking to the farm and reimagined the way a farm goes about eliminating pests and optimizing crop production.

Solinftec identified a core principle of crop production: the need to “live in the field.”

Stand Alone Sensing to “Living in the Field”

The promises of digital agriculture have been immense. From traceable food to fully autonomous equipment, de-commoditized grains and reduced fertilizer costs, there is no shortage of potential with digital technologies powering agriculture.

Yet, despite all of this digital technology, yields have gone up at about the same 1.3% annually as they have for decades and the profitability of the farmer sways based on the commodity cycle and interest rates.

Much like the famous Peter Thiel line describing a slowdown of innovation and societal progress, “We wanted flying cars and all we got was 140 characters, the digital agriculture equivalent could be “We wanted autonomous farms and traceable food, but all we got was was a lot of siloed data, hoards of colorful NDVI images and press releases about carbon farming.”

There is some satire in that line, but also some truth.

There has been a gap between what farmers and the industry have wanted and what has been delivered through digital agriculture.

The current expectation to reality gap stems from many reasons, including:

• farm internet connectivity

• lack of technology interoperability

• localized nature of farming

• poor incentive structures

But two other big ones are often ignored:

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