Based in 2024, this agtech start-up desires to be ‘the go-to platform for farmers trying to purchase or promote cattle in Eire’.
Darragh Scanlon has all the time had a ardour for and curiosity in farming, having come from a farming background in Co Kerry, the place his father works as an natural farmer.
That zeal caught with Scanlon all through his faculty years in Tralee and throughout his undergraduate and grasp’s levels in finance at College School Cork.
In mid-2024, he determined to show this ardour right into a enterprise and our newest Begin-up of the Week – HerdFinder.
HerdFinder is a free-to-use, farmer-friendly platform that connects cattle patrons and sellers throughout Eire.
“With devoted listings for standard, natural and pedigree cattle, the positioning streamlines livestock buying and selling, serving to farmers discover precisely what they’re in search of shortly and simply,” explains Scanlon to SiliconRepublic.com.
The web platform is “designed by farmers, for farmers”, he says, and likewise supplies market costs, trade insights and TB monitoring software program throughout counties in Eire.
“Our objective is for HerdFinder to be the go-to platform for farmers trying to purchase or promote cattle in Eire,” he says.
Homegrown tech
“The agricultural trade has seen a big uptake in expertise since Covid, however nonetheless lacks development in lots of areas,” says Scanlon. “Cattle buying and selling, for instance, remains to be historically completed via marts.
“The common age of farmers is kind of excessive, and as pure succession happens, a rising variety of youthful farmers – lots of whom work full-time whereas farming part-time – face challenges in making farming economically viable.”
To resolve this drawback, HerdFinder has positioned itself between each generations, providing a substitute for bodily marts.
In keeping with Scanlon, the HerdFinder platform – which is primarily concentrating on dairy and beef farmers – is tailor-made particularly to satisfy the calls for of farmers when shopping for or promoting cattle.
“We’ve got partnered with cattle societies and varied different commerce our bodies to assist combine these requirements via our platform, making it as seamless and simple as doable for farmers – one thing mirrored within the suggestions we’ve obtained to this point,” he says.
Scanlon says the most important problem with beginning HerdFinder was the expertise itself, and the method of guaranteeing the whole lot labored initially. Nevertheless, he says it’s been a “breeze” since then.
“As Roy Keane famously mentioned, ‘Fail to arrange, put together to fail’,” he quips.
Cultivated on-line
Having been in enterprise for a 12 months, HerdFinder is discovering its approach via the start-up scene – thanks partially to its social media presence.
“Since our launch, we’ve got actively engaged over 40,000 customers per 30 days, with 20,000 followers on Fb and 20,000 followers on TikTok – interesting to each older and youthful audiences and positioning us strongly for additional progress,” says Scanlon.
“There’s clearly a requirement for the platform, and it continues to go from energy to energy.”
Whereas the start-up will not be pursuing funding as of proper now –“I’ve saved prices extraordinarily low and maintained a decent, lean cap desk to date” – Scanlon provides that issues could change if the precise accomplice comes alongside “with the precise expertise and knowledge”.
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