Irish agritech company MagGrow raises €3m in investment

Dublin-based company has developed a magnetic spraying technology

Dublin-headquartered agritech company MagGrow has raised €3 million in funding. It says the money will be spend to support growth in target markets and further invest in its research and development initiatives.

The company has developed a magnetic spraying technology that reduces spray drift by 70 per cent and increases coverage by between 20 per cent to 40 per cent compared to conventional methods.

MagGrow, which was set up by brothers Gary and David Wickham and business consultant David Moore in 2013, has raised in excess of €10 million to date. The company did not disclose who had participated in the latest funding round other than to say it included new and existing investors.

The company has partnered with a number of academic institutions in recent years, including Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Harper Adams in Newport, England, and most recently Trinity College Dublin. It has also launched its own crop science centre at Farm 491, an agritech innovation space in Gloucestershire.

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"This latest investment will allow us to support our customers increasing requirements, accelerate our sales growth and ensure we continue to invest in the development of the underlying technology which has been a core strength of this business since the start," said Gary Wickham, MagGrow's chief executive.

The company was last year selected for the Pearse Lyons Agritech accelerator programme, along with MooCall, another Dublin-based agritech start-up that has developed a wearable device which alerts farmers when a cow is going into labour.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist