eXabit Leveraging Cloud Based IoT Agri Tech Platform

eXabit Systems develops and adopts new eco-friendly technologies for increasing crop productivity. Since long, it has been recognized that crops and soils are not uniform within a given field. The potential of precision farming for economic and environmental benefits could be visualized through reduced use of agricultural inputs such as water, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. In order to increase productivity and sustainability, eXabit’s focus is on Smart Sensing & Monitoring, Smart Control & Smart Analytics technologies to enable Precision Agriculture for mass.

“Our Hi-Tech Farming as a Service (HaaS) & Out-right sales for Agro-based Enterprises; with the Crop Analytics, Farming Extension Services, Crop Advisory, Farmer & Field Digitization along with Real-Time based Farm Automation gives us the leading edge to serve our Customer across all segment of Individual grower till Enterprise/Commercial Agri Organizations with the help of latest technologies. (Cloud,Mobile & IoT), said Satyajeet Mahapatra, eXabit’s Founder.

eXabit’s Product – Platform:

RobotiX-IoT Platform: A Cloud Based IoT Agri Tech Platform, Enabling Smart Precision Agriculture.

India is an agrarian country. Indian agriculture accounts for almost 14 per cent of GDP and employs 52 per cent of the population. It is a very important but underperforming sector. To meet the forthcoming demand and challenges, eXabit’s team has built a geographic positioning system (GPS)-based agriculture, site-specific and precision farming platform which includes computer-oriented technologies, agricultural decision support software, sensors and monitoring systems, GPS and mapping systems, predictive modelling technologies and imaging, etc.

Their RobotiX IoT Platform Enables Precision Agriculture Platform offers the potential to automate and simplify the collection and analysis of information. It allows management decisions to be made and quickly implemented on small areas within larger fields.

eXabit’s Product- Android Mobile APP, IOT Device & Cloud Analytics

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Primary Differentiator:

The team at eXabit works to enable smart precision agriculture for mass using the power of IoT, Cloud & Mobile Technologies. Their platform is built to solve problems of Developing Agri-Economies for both Individual growers & Commercial Agriculture in the following areas:

  1. Fragmented land Management
  2. Irrigation Planning & Automation
  3. Seed R&D
  4. Sustainability Practices
  5. Mechanization
  6. Supply chain management

Satyajeet further said that they stand out from their Global Competitions on the following ground;

  1. IoT Platform for Global Enterprise Operations
  2. Micro Climatic & Soil based Analysis and Advice
  3. Stage wise Crop Advisory
  4. Regional Language Based Operations
  5. Integrated Pest Management
  6. Integrated Supply Chain Management 

RobotiX’s Achievement:

  • 15- Enterprise Agro customers
  • 7-Green Houses Automation being handled for Our Progressive Farmer Clients 37-RobotiX Unit installed.
  • 3- Different models Field trial completed.
  • 8000+ Farmers Digitized & Connected by the System.
  • 12,000+ Acres digitized & managed by the System.
  • Presence in 6-Different States
  • Distribution Network created across 3-states

The team and its journey so far: 

Putting all this together has not been easy for the team at eXabit, a company founded by four engineering college friends; Satyajeet Mahapatra, Amulya Mishra, Prashant Sahoo & Avinash Agarwal. 

It was in 2013 that they started working on their plan to do something on their own & do something towards “Solving some Real & Serious problems” of the society via their venture, and it was in September 2014 that they finally started eXabit. 

Though they started providing post-harvest services that year, the work on the prototype of RobotiX was rolled out into the field in October 2015 and was ready for sale in July 2017 after a huge amount of field trials across different geographies with various crops & a lot of technological learning.

To make a farm grade product, which can be deployed anywhere in just 15~20-mins & start working almost without any human interventions for months together.

The journey started from asking friends and family for the initial investments and conducting field trials to get customers, to now when they have investors and more than 25 customers, 20+ pipeline customers across Pan India. The company and its founders have come a long way.

Challenges faced & Road Ahead:

The team believes that the continuous efforts made by government & various other social as well as private organization to act responsibly towards safe food production, sustainability focus, understanding the need of precision agriculture, more food requirement & bringing transparency in dealing with various farmer & farming schemes will contribute towards the acceptance of their technology at all levels. The promotion towards Digital India & converting all possible data into digital information will also contribute towards opening up the market to them.

Agriculture being treated at present mostly as a Monsoon dependent industry, commodity pricing volatility, absence of mechanism to have a clear & mutual beneficial law towards Contract, Community & Co-operative farming affects the Moral & Economic viability of our Individual & Enterprise consumers on time to time basis. 

“With the current NITI Aayog suggestion, government’s proactiveness throughout the country towards Agri & Overall Food Safety, GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) requirement at an International market level is giving us confidence to move our planned path, added Satyajeet.

eXabit’s Success Story for Individual Farmer

Muniratham, a farmer in his mid-fifties, in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, witnessed his crop yield fall by half following damage to his crops as he was unable to take serious notice of the details being sent to him on his phone. The previous cycle when he did notice them, his yield had been better than ever. The notifications were being sent to him by eXabit’s products, RobotiX & TactiX  – a comprehensive Agri IOT Platform, that he had set up at his farm. It was this product that helped him to understand the reasons for the loss in the second, and take corrective steps to get the optimum results again.nAnd this is where a product like RobotiX aims to come in and change the way of not only how farming is done in the country but also improve lives of farmers by taking care of the problems that usually lead to crop damage.

Through their IOT platform, the farmer is guided in a way that not only protects the crop from damage but is also able to increase the gross output of the crop by using Precision Farming practice. RobotiX IOT Platform’s Farm Automation on Real-Time basis make sure to use Natural resources like water in a proper way as well as increase the field labour efficiencies to focus on other critical aspects of the crop by allowing him/her to leave the monotonous job of managing the Motor, Irrigation, Valves, Sprinklers etc. to the RobotiX on field device. It roughly saves around half labour for the Farmer/Grower per month towards monitoring, controlling & taking care of certain activities which now via RobotiX does at a fixed cost (which is again on rent). 

No Annual Hike, No Leaves, No Need of Food, TA & DA..Available on field 24×7 !!. A targeted 20~25% gross margin improvement for the farmer.

eXabit’s Achievements at a Glance: 

  • DIPP-4341/StartupIndia, Govt of India
  • Winner Design4India Award-2017, by NASSCOM Design4India Council. 
  • NASSCOM Emerge 50 Companies 2017.
  • Best Start-Up RISC-2017, Agri & Allied Sector; NIRD&PR (from Ministry of Rural development & PR, Govt. of India)
  • Top-6 Companies-2017, ISB Envision Accelerator (from Indian School of Business)
  • Top-8 Companies-2017, CISCO Cohort-3 Accelerator (A CISCO System Inc Initiative)
  • Top-25 Tech Start-up -2016, Govt. Of Karnataka, Dept. of IT & BT (from Govt Of Karnataka)
  • Top-10 Innovative Company, Small Enterprise Award-2016 (from Aspire Media, Small Business Magazine)
  • Best Showcased Agri-Start up-2016, TiE Coimbatore (from Erode,TN, Agri Entrepreneurship Summit)