This EDA investment funds the AGRIX3 project, to expand aglaunch's accelerator platform across additional key agricultural regions and leverage and attract additional investment into those regions

The Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration awarded a $6.1 million Project Grant to Aglaunch Initiative under the BUILD TO SCALE federal grant program (CFDA 11.024). The funding supports Aglaunch's AGRIX3 project to expand its accelerator platform across additional agricultural regions and leverage additional investment. Key products and services include scaling Aglaunch's Data Commons framework for collecting and housing farm-level and trial-specific data; scaling its Open Market Consortium smart contract system; and creating a workforce entity for coding/computer science spinoffs. Once completed, Aglaunch's programs will reimagine and scale key agrifood supply chain segments by connecting diverse urban and rural farmers to value-creation tools leveraging farm data, startups, market transparency, and investment networks; prove and scale robotic solutions to lower labor barriers for specialty crops; and instigate crop identification, field trials and a diversified, vertically integrated regional cropping system with direct-to-consumer models. The award period is from November 1, 2022 through October 31, 2025.

Aglaunch builds national networks of diverse farmers to envision, enable, and accelerate the farms of the future through incubating new startups, pioneering new methodologies, and commercializing value-added projects. The project will grow technology and infrastructure previously created by: scaling the data commons, a framework for collecting and housing farm-level and trial-specific data for the use of startups and farmers; scaling the open market consortium smart contract system; and creating an entity for workforce and entrepreneurial spinoffs for coding/computer science. Once completed, aglaunch's programs will RE-imagine, RE-invigorate, and scale key segments of the agrifood supply chain by: connecting a diverse group of urban and rural farmers to each other and to a portfolio of unique value-creation tools leveraging farm data, startup engagement, market transparency, and investment network; prove and scale robotic solutions to lower labor-related barriers to specialty crop introductions; and instigate a focused process of crop identification, field trials, and scaling a diverse regional cropping system with vertically integrated local processing and direct-to-consumer models.