Matt: [00:00:00] From the Crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana. This is Get IN the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary innovations happening right now in the Heartland. I’m Matt Hunckler, CEO at Powderkeg, and I’ll be one of your hosts for today’s conversation. I’m joined in studio by co-host Christopher “Toph” Day, CEO at Elevate Ventures.

Hello Matt, and on the show today is Mitch Frazier, president and CEO at AgriNovus. 

Mitch: When you look at crop protection plant science, that segment of the Indiana Ag Bioscience Economy. For the first time over the last 10 years when we measured this, it, it didn’t decline well. 

Hello, Matt. 

Matt: Mitch Frazier is the president and CEO of AgriNovus, a nonprofit leading Indiana’s initiative to accelerate innovation and economic growth at the intersection of agriculture and technology. Before starting Agro Novis, Mitch was the CEO at Reynold’s Farm Equipment, VP of marketing [00:01:00] at Tinderbox, and VP of marketing, investor relations, and global communications at Exact Target.

And in today’s show, we’re going to cover Indiana’s journey to add billions to the Ag bioscience economy by 2024, transitioning out of tech into a legacy business like farm equipment sales, and also the latest advancement in Ag Tech. Mitch, thanks 

Mitch: for being on the show, man. Oh my gosh, Matt, thanks for being here.

It is fun to bring together tech and ag and food all in one place, and we gotta do it with you. 

Matt: Heck yeah. Right before lunch too. Perfect. It’s perfect. Um, I’m, I’m excited to dive into everything, ag tech, but first wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, your backstory. Sure. To, and I love just getting to know people better, where they came from, how they grew up.

Uh, can you take us back to your earliest memories of agriculture tech? Sure. Entrepreneurship? 

Mitch: Yeah. I’m a guy who found myself in ag and didn’t grow up on a farm. I grew up in rural Indiana, in Tipton County, Indiana. And you know, it was around tractors, it was around farming. But never thought this would be part of what I do.

I spent time, [00:02:00] active duty in the Army, spent five years on active duty, worked for the Army, uh, as a civilian in Iraq and down in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and then ultimately come, came back to Indiana to work for Governor Mitch Daniels. Ultimately in economic development. It’s where I met the team at Exact Target, and anyone who knows anything about tech in Indiana knows the guy.

Behind Exact Target. Scott Dorsey. He is magnetic. Uh, truly one of the most influential leaders on my life setting. Great examples in business and fatherhood, and being a great husband, he’s just an amazing guy. He brought me over to exact Target, did quite a bit of work in comms communications, then did a lot of work in marketing, and then got my MBA and decided.

Hey, you know, it looks kind of like we’re gonna go public and we hired a new public company ceo. We’d raised quite a bit of venture and so I literally just went and knocked on the new CFO’s door and was like, Hey man, um, I don’t know if we’re gonna go public, but if, if we are, I’d like to be a part of it.

I can carry things, I can shuffle things. Uh, and he and Scott [00:03:00] came to me about a week later if memory serves, and said, Hey, we’d like you to be our investor relations officer, and had just an amazing opportunity. Be a part of this team that took ExactTarget public, as you know, uh, exact Target had an amazing I p o, an amazing run as a public company.

Tremendous outcome. Uh, that’s now the cornerstone of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud at two and a half billion acquisition back in 2013, and then found my way through consulting, kind of as a fractional chief marketing officer. Into the world of act. Mm-hmm. And, uh, fell in love. I mean, fell in love with this economy that is built on feeding people.

I mean, there, it’s the only economy in the world that touches every person on this planet. And when you think about that, and you, every day, every day, every day, ideally three times a day. Right? Right. And so, so you look at this and you go, okay, well there’s something here. And then you look at the massive, the massive opportunity that is tech around ag, the troves of data that.

Just the affluent off of a tractor in terms of data, it’s, it’s amazing. And you see these worlds collide. And as we [00:04:00] went through the global pandemic, it just became so clear to me that there will be regions, there will be communities that emerge as winners. And I, you know, through a whole lot of discernment on my own, decided that.

You know, I, I think this is the right time for me to go do that. And here I am at Agro Novis. Beth Becktel, the founding CEO of Agro Novis, did an amazing job of building the infrastructure. And then I’ve picked up the ball and we’ve been running ever since. Matt, it’s been awesome. So, can we, can we pop back real quick?

Sure. So this is why I find I love these podcasts and I find diving deeper in with people. Fascinating. So, so, um, Be before we come to, there’s so many questions I have about present day, but we go backwards number one. Yeah. Thank you for your service. That’s amazing. Thank you. It was an honor. So, so you’re in, so you grew up in, in a rural area and then you go into the services.

I’m curious what you did in the services. Where I’m leading with this whole question is like the cross sector implications of your background. Um, because grew up in rural Indiana, you, you go to get into services. I’m [00:05:00] curious what you did in the services. How’d you find your, your way into technology?

How’d you meet Scott when you came, came to Indiana? Um, and how’d you choose marketing and comms? Right. And then we’ll eventually get to the whole ag bioscience piece. Yeah. And how all those pieces tied together. And, and by the way, selling farm implements Right. On a large scale. Um, so back to the services.

Yeah. So what’d you do there? It’s a great question. So I wanna first thank my dad and thank my grandparents. Both, both grandpas were in the service. Grandpa was a Navy guy, the other grandpa was a Marine. I never met him. Uh, my dad was in the army and so I knew from pretty early age that I would. I would serve, and I had, you know, dabbled in reporting and photography.

And so I had a chance to join the Army as a public affairs specialist, which, hmm, like the, the, when you do the secret decoder ring, what that means is you’re a reporter for the, the base newspaper. And as you grow in terms of rank, you become basically a PR guy. And so I had the great fortune of serving as the public affairs leader, the the soldier.

Leader, uh, for [00:06:00] the largest foreign language training institution following nine 11. I mean, it was Monterey, California. Wow. And so the Presidio of Monterey Defense Language Institute, that’s where we, we as a, as a country teach people to speak foreign language. And so nine 11 happens and, you know, I, I’m on active duty and have an amazing opportunity to see, to serve and to be a part of something where we are building the future of the forest.

And it was, Tofu was awesome. That’s amazing. I, I have to share one quick story. Uh, so the John, the uss, John C. Dennis, mm-hmm. Aircraft carrier had the, the, the absolute honor of spending a night on that out at sea. So on the, on that, Aircraft carrier for 30, what was it, 36 or maybe a little bit longer hours.

And, uh, I think people don’t realize, I didn’t realize the, um, the amount of service that our armed services do in, in terms of humanitarian efforts, like every single day, right? Those aircraft carriers are cruised around the world and they’re dropping off [00:07:00] things to, to other countries that need help, you know, famine, all those kinds of things.

It’s happening every single day, every single week. Nobody ever hears about it. It’s true. I mean, there, there are so many. There’s so many stories from those who have served, those who are serving, and, and I I want to go back to something you said because you said, how did we get the Yeah. How did you get here?

When, when you look at all the things that we talk about today in terms of workforce, all, it doesn’t matter whether it’s ag, bioscience, pick your favorite sector of the economy. We talk about how do we train people. The military has been doing this for decades. Centuries, right. I mean, yeah. Sincerely. I, yeah, I, I joined the army.

If they can teach somebody like me to write, like, that’s a pretty good thing. And, and then ultimately found my way into working for the Army as a civilian. And then, you know, got into comms, got into marketing, et cetera, et cetera. But the whole notion of that is, is we have a system and if there are young people listening it, there are all kinds of jobs.

If there is a job that you’re thinking about, you cybersecurity. Sure. Indiana has a massive cybersecurity [00:08:00] operation. In the Army National Guard. Yep. I mean, there are so many things. And get your college paid for. I mean, literally my undergrad and my MBA paid for by you. So thank you Tov. Uh, and all the taxpayers are listening.

That’s awesome. I think people don’t realize that either. That’s right. It’s amazing. 

Matt: Yeah. So how did you get plugged into tech when you moved to Indianapolis? Yeah, 

Mitch: so I’m working at the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and, uh, Like any other fast growing company, exact targets, making big news. And I remember having, uh, lunch with Scott Dorsey.

I don’t know if he knows this story, so this is gonna be good. Uh, I had lunch with Scott Dorsey. This was, uh, I don’t know, 2000, probably 2007, late 2006. And great meeting a sort of a friend of a friend connection. So we have lunch and I’d leave that lunch. I’m like, that guy is amazing. I don’t think I’m set for a startup, right?

Like it feels really risky. I don’t know. And fast forward another year and there’s another big jobs announcement from Exact Target, and they had just hired a new [00:09:00] chief marketing officer by the name of Tim Cop. Yep. And. You know, there’s those people in your life when you first meet them. You’re like, that guy’s gonna change me.

And I and Tim had been at these little companies like Coca-Cola. Right. Well that, that was exactly it is. So I meet Tim and I’m like, man, he is really awesome. Right? Like, this guy is incredible. He’s just driven, he understands this. And then I got to know him and yeah, he worked at Coca-Cola. He was the first, I think, VP of Digital at Coca-Cola.

He was the first p and g, uh, VP of Digital. Yep. I’m like, okay, listen, you know this, this is probably a life lesson here. You don’t have to be really smart. You just have to know, like identify, start smart patterns. And so I was like, okay, if that guy’s gonna give up that stuff, I should probably be thoughtful about this.

And so, uh, I remember it was the day after Thanksgiving, I c I can almost like see myself typing an email to Scott Dorsey and Tim Cop, and I’m like, Hey, um, I’d like to come work with you. And, you know, fast forward another four or five months and there I am. 

Matt: Was there a job opening or were you just saying, Hey, I like what you’re 

Mitch: doing and you know, I don’t think there was, [00:10:00] Matt.

That’s a good question. I, I don’t know if there was, I mean, you just look back at the audacity like, good for me then. Right. I want to go back and be like, high five. You, uh, you just thought that you would go do this and couldn’t, couldn’t do your job. I 

Matt: don’t know that there was, yeah. That’s one of the beautiful things about startups for sure.

Yeah. They’re going and, and if you see an opportunity of where you can help, You can plug 

Mitch: in and it was an incredible ride. I mean, you, you both, and so many listening know the incredible caliber of talent that was across the board that continues to be across the board and it was, uh, yeah, just an electric ride.

What was one of your 

Matt: favorite lessons you learned from working with Tim Cop at Exact Target? You 

Mitch: know, I always love, you know, Tim had this idea of we, we don’t have to have the best. Sort of depth in industry knowledge as he built his team. So if I look at Tim’s leadership team, even in those early chapters, you know, there are a couple folks from Tech, you had some dude that came from the state, me.

You had some guy who used to run a digital agency. You had a gal who had been there for a while, a man elite. Amazing. [00:11:00] But it was just this, this eclectic group of people. And I think early stage, even scaling stage companies can get so fixated on this idea. Well, we have to find people who have done this before.

Mm-hmm. Tim had a very different view. Tim was, Tim was, and continues to be a guy who says, look, I’m gonna find people who can work hard, who can understand problems and not bring problems, but bring solutions as they identified problems. And I realize that’s one of those macro things you’re like, oh yeah, I think that was on page seven of the book.

It was. And it is, but no one ever, it’s rare that you actually see somebody implement it. And then I wanna share one story about Dorsey, because I think this is a story everybody knows. The Scott Dorsey. Two and a half billion dollar exit. Amazing guy. We all know that. But here’s the piece that I, I think was the greatest influence on my life, not my career.

My life is Scott has four girls. I have two girls. Uh, didn’t then by the way, uh, and Scott made time to coach every one of his girls’ basketball teams. [00:12:00] Yep. And if you think about what happened during that period of time, let me just reset the clock here. So we’re talking early oh nine through exit. You know, we raised a couple hundred million a venture.

Mm-hmm. We took a company public. He became, he was a one of three co-founders who continued to evolve. His leadership continued to evolve personally and professionally to become c e o and chairman of a publicly held company, and then lead a giant swath of one of the largest SaaS companies in the world at Salesforce.

And he did it while being an awesome dad and an awesome husband. And there is so much power in that, that. You know, we can get so fixated on our careers and not realize that career is a piece of life. It’s not life. And, and Scott is the example of what we should all strive to be. Did you get some insight 

Matt: into how he balanced that and, and created that space?

Mitch: Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a handful of things. One, he is, he is a, a centered guy. Uh, his wife Erin, is an amazing human being, and I think she, she was also that center right of, of making sure that everything stayed in [00:13:00] place. But then those around Scott, I mean, Sean Keesling has been a longtime assistant to Scott, and I think Sean would put herself in that category as well of, you know, we, we need to make sure that this works.

And Scott was really clear of this is how it’s going to be. And what I, what I love is that we, I think we’ve all probably worked with folks who have said these are objectives. But living them is different. And so he, he didn’t make a big deal out of, it wasn’t like, oh, well I’m gonna go coach my kid’s basketball team.

Right. It was, well, Scott’s going, coach kid, basketball team. That’s what I knew. It was just part of life and so it, what’s what was wild is, is my, my girls now are five and three, and so we’re talking, you know, a chapter removed. Uh, I didn’t necessarily even know it. I didn’t know that I was noticing it then until now that I’m a dad.

Mm-hmm. Um, And gosh, I’m so grateful for Scott’s leadership and example that he set. That’s 

Matt: a great story. Uh, quick break from our normal programming. I have Erica Schwer, COO from Elevate Ventures here in the studio today. Erica, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. And you’re gonna tell [00:14:00] us a little bit about this Rally innovation conference that’s coming up?

Yep. So it’s the largest cross-sector innovation conference in the world. Um, we’re gonna feature six innovation studios. So think hard tech software, sports tech, agon, food, healthcare, and entrepreneurship’s gonna kinda be our catchall. I love that. So tell me what is, who’s it for? Yeah, it’s for innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, honestly, anybody probably listening to this podcast.

And it’s gonna be a multi-day thing that’s happening multi-day in downtown Indianapolis. Yep. People coming in from all over the country and maybe even all over the world to be here. That’s our hope. Yep. And the dates are actually August 29th to the 31st. Perfect. And if people want to find out more information about speakers, tickets, things like that, where can they go?

Yeah, so they just go to rally innovation.com and sign up for communications and they can also get their tickets. I love it. You heard to hear rally innovation.com. We’ll see you there. Well, let’s talk about some ag tech. Let’s do it. 

Mitch: It is one of my faves. Be because, uh, 

Matt: there’s so many things I know you accomplished at Exact Target.

We might have to do a part two of this just to dive into all of that. But [00:15:00] you are seeing all kinds of things in, it’s incredible in agriculture, in food tech, in Ag tech. Can you talk to us about just the overall market size 

Mitch: of that industry? Yeah, we’d love to. I’ll give you sort of a landscape of what’s happening here in Indiana and where we’re, where we’ve been and where we’re going.

So we are a $58 billion economy in Indiana when we talk about the direct economic impact of Ag bioscience and we, we think about Ag bioscience, we’re intentional in the use of the word because it comprises five key sub-verticals. Value added food, nutrition. You can think of this as really anything.

Ingredient manufacturing. Food manufacturing. So that’s one. It’s the largest sub-sector, by the way. It’s crazy. 30 billion ish. Wow. 30 billion. Wow. Yeah, I would never would’ve guessed that. Wow. Yeah. So juxtapose that with. Production agriculture, when we talk ag tech and ag bioscience people are go, oh yeah, I, I’ve driven by a field.

Mm-hmm. It, it’s a really critical piece, right? We, we cannot have the ag bioscience we have in Indiana without production agriculture, but that’s a a 17 ish billion dollar economy. And value added food is a 30 billion. [00:16:00] Economy doesn’t make one greater than the other. Just, yeah, contextually, I think it’s helpful as we drive through the countryside, you, you can start to see where this happens.

So, value added food, nutrition, number one. Number two, animal health and nutrition. So this is, mm-hmm. Everything from vaccine to feed. How do we care for that animal? How do we feed that animal? This is the fastest growing category over the last decade of Indiana’s ag bioscience economy. And the, the longest pole in that tent is elanco.

You know, a Lanco had their I P O in 2018. Now they’re the second largest animal health company in the world, second largest in the world, and they’re here. Wow. Right. And so they’re building a new headquarters in the old GM stamping plant, uh, just across from the zoo here in Indianapolis. So that’s number two.

Number three is plant science and crop protection. Mm-hmm. Now, plant science and crop protection, think of this as how do we innovate in seeds? How do we innovate for resiliency, for sustainability? And then how do we care for that seed once it emerges and becomes a plant all the way through harvest. Now [00:17:00] here’s a staggering piece.

So we think plant science, crop protection, and a guy who did not major in biology, just so we’re clear. Um, yeah, this is crazy. So Corteva is now, their global headquarters is here in Indianapolis. Guys. They’re the fourth largest publicly held company in Indiana by market cap. Wow. Period. So it’s Eli Lilly, number one.

El Van’s Health used to be Anthem Health number two, Simon Property Group. Number three, Corteva. Number four. I mean, this is a juggernaut bigger than Cummins, bigger than steel dynamics, bigger than Zimmer Biome. All really important pieces of the economy. But contextually, I think we sometimes lose the idea that we have the largest pure play ag company in the world.

Headquartered here in Indiana. In fact, it’s just up the street. So those are the top three. Number four is AgTech. So this is the area that often we, we talk about and we talk about this intersection of hardware and software. Fast growing, about a 2 billion, two and a half billion market here in Indiana.

And then I mentioned 17 billion in production ag. But here, I, I want to [00:18:00] even broaden this out for those who are like, man, I don’t, I don’t know how big is this, right? 58 billion? I don’t know. It’s, it’s bigger than 57 and not as big as 60. Right? Like, and what does it really mean? Right? So if, if you put this into context, so if you look at the economist view of this direct impact is 58 billion, but if you look at direct, indirect, and induced, when people talk about, well, the economic impact of fill in the blank, they’re usually talking about that bigger number.

Yep. So it’s 91 billion. When you look at it in that construct, when you look at total economic impact, that’s about 20% of the state’s gdp. Wow. 

Matt: That’s amazing. What, what’s that like on a national scale when you kind i com compare, is that pretty equitable on a national scope, about 20% of the GDP nationally?

That’s 

Mitch: a great question. I don’t know the answer to that. Yeah. I mean, when we look at the diversity here, I would argue we are above index. Yeah. That’s just contextually. I, I don’t have raw data to support it. And here’s the reason why. You look Atlan, you look at Corteva, you look at the number of innovators we have across this, this spectrum.

You know, Indianapolis is a really [00:19:00] Indianapolis, central Indiana. Indiana at large is a really interesting geography. When we think about what’s here, i I, if you think really broadly about why, why we’re seeing this kind of growth, why we’re seeing this differentiated above, sort of the mean, we’re we have this unique asset that is, we have plant health, Corteva.

Mm-hmm. All those around it. We have animal health, elanco, all those around it. We have the nation’s largest medical school. We have a pharmaceutical giant and, and I, I realize that feels maybe like apples and tangerines, but if you think about this soil health, really good soil health comes from plant science, crop protection.

Yep. Right. Those plants will ultimately feed animals. Those animals will ultimately feed people, and those people’s health will ultimately cared for by the medical system. This macro concept is called One Health. There is no other metro, not just in America, I would argue in the world. Hmm. That has the balance sheet, the assets that we have to transform that in a world where sustainability and [00:20:00] profitability have to go hand in hand, in a world where we have a really unique position to go achieve.

Guys, I mean, this place, this place, Indiana is the place this next chapter will 

be 

Mitch: built. That that right there is a beautiful example of like cross-sector innovation in its purest form, without a doubt. Direct linkage to each one. Yeah. And it’s not abstracted. That’s a real, a real thing. That’s a real thing.

And you can see how all of those pieces, the puzzle fit together. Yeah. Let’s, can we dive into some macro and micro Sure. Examples, right? I’m, you know, I’m gonna leave the macro real quick and go to micro. Yeah, let’s, let’s do it. So, um, You have all of these incredible organizations, number one, number two in the world.

Um, and they’re right here in Indiana. So like what? You have universities involved as well. So what are some examples? I’ll see a couple examples punted. Um, but, uh, so I know there’s people working on like, uh, one of a favorite story I heard from you once. There’s a company out there, uh, working on, if you think about a, a Cornstalk, this is nari.

And NARI is an amazing [00:21:00] company. Yes. And, and how so? What if we could have a seed. That the cornstalk was a third of the height instead of whatever a cornstalk is. Well, I have a fun question, by the way, for the podcast here in a minute. Cause I did grow up on a farm, so good. Um, but if a cornstalk could be three feet tall versus six feet tall, it could be much more efficient, et cetera, would be an example.

There’s also a shrimp farm example. Yes. Um, so talk about a couple micro innovations that you see happening, happening that you think are amazing. Yeah. Without, I wanna plug into the Inari example. So you mentioned a company called Inari Enri, I N A R I. This is a company with a giant operation up in West Lafayette.

So the company is headquartered outta Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston, and their ceo, her name is Ponzi Trevis Fave. This lady is amazing. She used to be the president of Syngenta Seeds North America, and she had this vision of how can we use gene editing technology to improve the efficiency and improve the operations and resiliency and sustainability of production agriculture.

And so she’s gone down the [00:22:00] path of, her and her team have gone down the path of how do we use gene editing to your points, can we, can we optimize that seed to use less nutrients because it has, doesn’t have to create as much biomass to create the same yield. Hmm. It’s amazing. Now here’s a, like the exclamation point on why she and that company is awesome.

She led the largest series C of any female led AgTech company in the world in history. That’s it. And that’s amazing and insane. The largest, the largest operation for Anari is here in Indiana. It’s bigger than their headquarters. This is the place, so that’s a great example. You mentioned Auraria. Auraria is a shrimp farm that we actually got plugged into through the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.

Hosted them, brought them here to Indiana. And this is why, where were they from? Uh, from Mexico? Yep. Hmm. So they were from Mexico. Their first US operation is here in Indiana. And what they do is they take a, in essence, a rail container, and they have created a AI system and a software and hardware system that uses [00:23:00] ai, that feeds the shrimp, that creates the conditions for the shrimp to thrive.

And they can do that anywhere, right? Because it’s in a rail container. So you think about macro sustainability pushes, this is really interesting, right? Because we can push point of production to close to point of consumption. Yep. Yes. So we’re, we’re lessening supply chains. That’s really good. But also from a profitability standpoint, and this is a really important piece as we go forward, is those two have to go hand in hand.

You can’t have, you cannot have durable sustainability without profitability. It just doesn’t work. Yeah. These guys are doing some amazing, amazing work. But we got to them through the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and the, one of the reasons I believe they’re here is because this incredible economy that’s here.

So when they came, we hosted them in, in partnership with I E D C, but we were able to connect them to lco. We were able to connect them to, uh, the, the folks at the Corn and Soybean Alliance because well, shrimp eat things, right? Right. Like the idea that we have this system. [00:24:00] That exists and we have connectivity that exists.

It is a really easy place to plug in. Matt, you’ve done this so long of, you know, how do we create this connected ecosystem in terms of entrepreneurship? We see a microcosm of that in Ag Bioscience, and it is, it is electric and it is differentiated. You talk to these guys that come in and they say, boy, this is, this is something unique, right?

Like I can just come and talk with Toin, like we, I can meet anybody I’d ever wanna meet, and that is happening here and it’s creating this magnet. This taking that what was a 52 billion economy to a 58 billion economy. And what was that growth over? Oh, that was, uh, that was over a 36 month period. Tof, thanks for the question.

Yeah, because here, here’s the, here’s the beauty guys. So we, when I joined from Reynolds Farm Equipment, when you mentioned that earlier, a local or regional John Deere dealer here, you, I came in and I said, look, we, if we’re going to do this, we gotta have goals, right? We, we have to have a measurable metric to get to.

And the board was kind when we went, did some research and we had data from [00:25:00] 12, 15 and 18, first time we’d ever quantified this economic impact. And it came out 52.3 billion. And so we forecasted based on each of those five sub-verticals and what we thought we could get to, we really thought 4 billion.

And I’ll tell you, I was like, well, if we get to three and a half, really, who’s mad? But we set 4 billion. So 4 billion was our goal. By 2024 we called it. And we still call it our Grow 2024 Ambition. And when we delivered a $6 billion growth reality from data in a 36 month period, 14 months of that, by the way, were the only periods that weren’t covered by the global pandemic.

Yep. Yep. It’s amazing. And, and just to be clear, I want to, I wanna say this because I, I hope, I hope we have a lot of folks listening that is not agro novis. That is all of the companies that wake up every day with a commitment to feed this world, whether they’re in animal health, whether they’re in food, whether they’re in there in plant science and crop protection, aec, they’re the ones doing the work.

We get to be the ones that count it to celebrate it, to give ’em high fives, but they’re the ones that deserve the credit. I want to 

Matt: ask you more about these companies because there are so many amazing trends that are happening right now [00:26:00] in technology and innovation. And one of those I have to imagine has a huge implication on agriculture and that is internet of things.

Sure. And robotics. How is, how is IOT affecting agriculture and how is agriculture, robotics kind of changing the way we do food production, animal health, all of the things you mentioned in the ag bioscience world. 

Mitch: Fantastic question, Matt. When you look at what are the three big trends driving the future of this economy?

One of them is labor shortages will drive innovation. And so what we’re seeing is a real shift, a real in, uh, innovation if you will, in terms of robotics, not because it’s cool to have a, you know, automated lettuce farm. Plenty, a $1 billion ish venture capital backed company. They’ve raised about a billion dollars.

Wow. That fasting Walmart’s on, on the cap table, uh, Schmidt from Google’s on the cap table. I mean, it’s an amazing company, but they did it not because, boy, it’d be really neat if we could have automated lettuce. Because they don’t have people. Yeah. John Deere made a big move [00:27:00] in 2021. They bought a company called Bear Flag Robotics.

Mm-hmm. And this was, imagine taking a big ag tractor that you would see running through the field and they com made it completely autonomous. Wow. And was Beauti, I mean, it was beautiful as a, as a guy who sold tractors for a while, but also just a guy who appreciates design. I mean, it was, it was beautiful.

And so the, the whole notion there was, and we went out and saw them in California. Uh, they had said, look, when you plant cabbage and lettuce and cauliflower and broccoli, you’re planting into a seed bed that needs to be almost like T powder. So you’re running tillage 12, 15, 18, 20 times over the same area to prepare the seed bed.

Wow. Well, if you think about, you know, that’s a guy or a gal in the tractor driver’s seat, and if we can remove that and apply that labor, not replace that labor, set aside that labor, put that labor into higher use somewhere. Well now we can actually scale this production and that’s what we’re seeing.

Case New Holland made another big move in [00:28:00] 2021 as well. They bought a company called Raven, a publicly held company. And if you sort of dig into the filings, what you find is autonomy was a big reason why they made that move as well. And so I think we’re gonna going to continue to see, as we look at. You know, unemployment rate, I think just came out, was in the threes 3.1.

If I remember correctly. We, we are at full employment. Yeah. And so what it creates for entrepreneurs, and my hope is those that are listening, you are catching fire. Like you are hearing this and you’re like, man, I want to go run through the wall and I wanna go solve these problems. These problems exist and it’s not one of those things that, golly, it’d be nice to solve.

I mean, guys, this is how we eat. Yeah. Right. This is how our kids eat. This is the future of food and solving real problems here matters. And I would argue it matters more 

Matt: than most. Well, it hits home for me, Mitch, because I grew up riding on my grandpa’s lap in the tractor. Sure. In the John Deere tractor all day.

You know, he worked 12 plus hour days. I, I remember there were a couple years he had a farm hand, but for the most part, he farmed hundreds of acres [00:29:00] on his own. Yeah. And he had to ride that tractor and then do all of the other things. To keep that farm going in the Dakotas. And, you know, I wouldn’t trade that time on my grandpa’s laps or anything in the world, but that’s because that I grew up in the nineties.

Right? If I grew up in the 2020s, it would be me watching my grandpa over his shoulder as he programs the, the tractor, right? Or as he figures out how to, you know, which AI tool to use to help get more data and more intelligence to grow. And produce more effectively. 

Mitch: That’s exactly right. I mean, you look at the productivity rate of acreage in the US specifically and what we’re able to deliver from a yield perspective.

Some of that is equipment innovation, some of that seed innovation is staggering. I mean, the growth. Uh, the amount of food that we can create on the acres we can create is extraordinary. So I 

think 

Mitch: I, uh, didn’t Beck’s hybrid seeds take it from, in the 1940s or fifties, around 50 bushels an acre? And I’ve seen some numbers recently that, that I think I saw some of ’em popped up in the 600, but like they’re consistently [00:30:00] producing 400 ish.

Is that roughly correct? Might be a little high. Is it a little high? Might be a little high, but it is, it’s a, it’s staggering. The, the rate of growth that we’ve seen in terms of productivity. I, I think that’s such an important piece and it’s. You know, you look at the, the technology advances on the science side, that’s what’s making that possible.

Yeah. But you also look at it on the equipment side. So, you know, I, I’m, I’m not a Tesla driver. I drive a really big Jeep and I love it. Um, 

Matt: but for those that, oh, not too bad. Nate’s not here. I know he’s a 

Mitch: Jeep. He’s a Jeep driver as well. Oh my gosh. Nate, buddy. We need to talk. I know. Uh, but you people got so excited.

You know, rewind five years ago when Tesla had. You know, semi-autonomous driving or semi-autonomous steering. And we’ve seen that come over time to other brands. But really, Tesla was kinda the forefront. Yeah. Guys, the first tractor, the first John Deere tractor with auto steer was 2001. Wow. Wow. Wow. That’s crazy.

So put that into context. I mean, there are, there are some amazing innovations that are happening here. Yep. That have a application across, [00:31:00] back to your cross-sector piece. For us to rally around that could make, uh, that could I see what you did there? You see that, that could be really, really impactful for the rest of the economy.

Well, I love it. Speaking 

Matt: of the, the people shortage, another huge trend right now is artificial intelligence. Without a doubt, machine learning. How is AI and ML playing a role in agriculture and food production? 

Mitch: Giant opportunity. I mean, you, you look at the complexity. I mean, let’s just look at production agriculture.

Mo we can ta, we can touch on animal health if you want, but if you look at production agriculture, You’re actually building an outdoor manufacturing facility. Hmm. Right Where, where you don’t control variability. So you can do everything you can to care for that seed, to optimize that seed to create the conditions, weather changes, things happen.

So when, when you think about that and you think about all the data that is coming off the production system, whether it’s the, the tractor, the planter, the sprayer, drone, aerial [00:32:00] imagery, satellite imagery, weather data, all of this, uh, being able to aggregate that and actually make sense of it, I think we’re still in early innings.

Yeah. We 

Matt: have all this big data and analytics. 

Mitch: I, I agree that I, I think we haven’t even started yet. Mm-hmm. Like, like we have, but like, But when 

Matt: you zoom out a hundred years from now, it’ll look like we haven’t even started. We 

Mitch: haven’t started. We’re just, I don’t know, for scratching the surface yet. It’s insane.

It’s incredible and, and I think that the opportunity in production agriculture specific is, so you think about all of that data we just talked about now, isolate that into a production system where you only have 35 or 40 chances to get it right. So this isn’t like SaaS. What do say, say it again. What?

What do you mean by that? You only have 35 to Well, yeah. So if you only have 35 to 40 chances to get it right, meaning you only have, as a career, you only have 35 or 40 planting seasons, right? So the, the decisions you make, it’s not like, well, we can just push an [00:33:00] update. Well, that was a bug. What was it? A feature, different topic.

Uh, the idea is you can’t do that, right? When you put a seed in the ground, you, you can’t. You can’t push an update. It doesn’t work that way. And so the other piece that is I think really, really important as we think about this aggregation of data and applying ML and applying AI is how do we do that in a way that is more coached than prescriptive?

Mm-hmm. Because when you only have that many chances, it’s also about risk mitigation. Yep. And, and how do we, how do we recognize, how do we honor, how do we establish what that really means? And then how do we inform and how do we coach? And it’s, you know, we, we’ve seen a couple generations of AgTech now, I would argue we’re in the fourth or fifth wave of AgTech innovation.

And I think we’ve seen a lot of folks who have tried to say, well, this is what you should do, right? Like, we, we’ve used all the data and this is what it is, that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work that way because it is such a multivariate equation. And it’s such a, a legacy [00:34:00] in a very positive way. Of we have to care for this land and we have to make sure that we do everything we can to be responsible to ensure that we continue to produce the food and produce the output that we do, because again, I, as the farmer, only have 35 or 40 chances to get this right.

Matt: Do you have any examples of companies in the agro Novas ecosystem that are using some of these things like AI and big 

Mitch: data? Oh my gosh. To make an impact. So many. I, I, a couple of just are on the top of my head that I love. So Tyrannis is a company that moved their global headquarters from Tel Aviv, Israel to Westfield.

So just north of Indianapolis. These guys are amazing. They just raised 40 million last year. Uh, they are so imagine a system that can, you know, Actually agnostic of how they acquire the data. So whether it’s a drone or whether it’s a satellite or whether it’s a plane, doesn’t really matter. But we’re taking data from aerial imagery and aerial imagery and we’re saying, Hey, look, I can spot with sub millimeter precision.

That’s a [00:35:00] bug. And because of AI can say that bug is this kind of bug, and because of ml, I can say, well, that kind of bug typically has this kind of spread over this period of time, and you should go do this tomorrow. Wow. Yep. That’s happening in Indiana with an incredible innovator called Terans. 

Matt: That’s an incredible example.

I love it. That’s 

Mitch: incredible. It’s, it’s astounding. And, and that’s the kind of innovation that’s happening because again, there, what, what did we learn from even the prior example, it’s not saying, Hey, Matt, hey tof, if you need to go do this, it’s saying, Hey, look, we’ve identified this. You make the decision.

Yeah. But hey, you should probably be aware. Yeah. Knowledge, right? No, back. The old saying knowledge is power. Amen. What, what, what, um, do, do you know what one, one of one of the drivers, the biggest driver or two of why they chose to relocate from Tel Aviv to. India to Westfield, Indiana. Yeah, I think part of its relationship.

So I had a chance to join Governor Holcomb on a trade mission back in 2018 when I was selling tractors. I was confounded at the time of what, why [00:36:00] am I going to Tel Aviv Israel? I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna sell a combine or a tractor there. But, uh, thank god I did and had a chance to meet them. Fun story.

This won’t take long, but it’s, it’s awesome. So you wonder how these deals kind of come together and Yep. Serendipity is a real thing. So, uh, Beth Bechtel, the, the founding CEO of Anovos, reached out to me and I’d been kind of involved in the Anovos ecosystem for a while. Spoke at a couple of other events and she’s like, Hey, you’re a tech guy.

Find us some really interesting tech companies in Tel Aviv to meet with. We’re going over with the governor. I’m like, okay. I didn’t have any idea. Like, I had no idea. You just say yes, right? Like, oh, sure, sure. Jump right on that. Oh, then look at my mi television context. That’s right. So I use the power of Google cuz that’s, you know, that’s what you do.

And I, you know, typed in most promising AgTech companies in Israel. And I had a whole list of ’em. And one of them I found Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, was a seed investor in, and you know, I think Mark makes pretty good choices. At least he made two and a half billion good choices. Let’s start there.

That’s probably good here in Indiana. Uh, and I was like, well, if, if Mark invested in ’em, they [00:37:00] must be good. So literally that’s the, that’s how we selected that company. And then I didn’t have contact. So it was like the, the, you know, old sales mentality of like, okay, I can probably guess this guy’s email address, right?

Fer, schwam, schwam fer, ohla, schlom o, right? Like all the different permutations of email address, right? He answered one of them. Holy shit, that’s awesome. And we were able to, uh, go meet with him. Yeah. And so we brought a delegation, we met with them, built the relationship, and then as they look to continue to grow their global presence, look, if you’re going to be in this market, you need to be in the us.

Yeah. They hire a new, uh, new guy who had some experience, who had lived in Westfield, who had lived all across the country. He conducted a really meaningful analysis. His name is Mike Depa. Mike’s now their chief commercial officer, and Mike and I spent some time around and they ultimately made the move in 2020 to make this their global headquarters.

Matt: It’s awesome. That’s, that is an awesome, incredible story. Uh, uh, talk to me a little bit more about, um, biotechnology. Um, how do you use techniques like plant breeding, you know, genetic engineering, [00:38:00] crispr you know, to continue to produce, uh, healthier livestock, healthier plants? What are some of the companies that are doing that?

And what are you excited about in 

Mitch: that space? Yeah, I’m really excited. So go back to the sort of set, the macro scene here. When you look at crop protection, plant science, that segment of the Indiana Ag bioscience economy, for the first time over the last 10 years, when we measured this, it, it didn’t decline.

And I, I realize saying didn’t decline, doesn’t sound like an increase. But that’s a big deal because that industry, specifically, that segment of the market, Has really been compressed through consolidation, mergers, and acquisitions. Sure. And so to see them jump back into a growth perspective gives me a lot of confidence that Indiana is well positioned to go capture share, not just here in the States, but globally, especially with Corteva here.

Yeah. When you look at the companies doing that, I mean, there’s so many and there’s so many applications. We talked about Inari up in West Lafayette earlier you mentioned Bex hybrids, tof doing some amazing work. AgReliant Genetics, also headquartered in [00:39:00] Westfield, doing some amazing work. But one I wanna highlight that I think is, I mean, this is, this gives you goosebumps.

I mean, it’s just amazing. So Chuck Maros, the new CEO of Corteva. Had a chance to spend some time out in California at World a agritech, this is like the Super Bowl of all things cool ag stuff happening. How many people? Uh, I don’t know. Thousands. Thousands. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it, it was, it was awesome. I mean, just electric.

So Chuck takes the stage, uh, incredible guy, and he announces a partnership between Buny, Chevron and Corteva to create a new low carbon fuel. You talk about something that applies to everyone. We can talk about food, and I think we all conceptually get it. You talk about fuel? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sustainable aviation fuel, sustainable diesel.

The idea that we could harness the power of plants to actually make that impact. Powerful. Now here’s context that, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I love this. So I was in C at CES earlier this year with with I E D C and a couple other [00:40:00] folks, and John Deere was on stage. So John Deere, CTO’s name is Jamie Hyman.

The guy’s amazing. Now the, the opening day of ces, like the opening day of CES is John Deere. That’s awesome. In and of itself. And Jamie said, Hey, look, I, I know that there are going to be a lot of cool electric cars and innovations announced here. But I wanna give you context that it alone is not enough and it alone doesn’t solve all challenges.

He talked about a portfolio approach, but he had a picture of a giant AR tractor, so big Ag tractor behind him, and he said, listen, if we were to electrify this tractor, it would take 38 Tesla model three batteries. That tractor would wait twice as much, be twice as big, and cost four times as much. Now here’s the real kicker and, and the re and then the batteries don’t degrade.

Correct. Now here’s the kicker. When you think about that, so we all all think about the energy transition. We think, you know, fossil fuel to battery. He said if we were to use sustainable diesel in that tractor, it would have the [00:41:00] same carbon intensity as if it were electrified. There you go. Wow. I love it.

That’s the power of plant science. That’s the power of innovation that is happening. And there’s a perfect intersection where you see AgTech. And plant science and crop protection coming together to solve real world problems. Well, and this is 

Matt: something that absolutely, uh, plays into the trend of sustainability.

Without doubt, without probably the biggest place that humanity can make an impact is continuing to create more sustainable ways to. Farm produce food. 

Mitch: Well, what’s interesting, we, and, and we don’t hear, um, we think about sustainability. We, we, we think about fossil fuel, right? To battery, right? There’s no in between.

And, uh, so like, why maybe we shouldn’t go down that path. I don’t know. But why is that? Like, why, why aren’t we talking about this more as a society and shouting this from the rooftops that, that, uh, not only is this possible, but it’s real, and, and it, and it’s, there might even be beta testing going on. Is there.

Initial versions of this already in practice, there has been a rise in [00:42:00] the interest in sustainable aviation fuel. Yeah, I’d say that’s probably one of the headline pieces we’ve seen. You know, we don’t have to go back that many chapters to look at ethanol. Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, ethanol that’s right, is from corn and, and we’re seeing that as a additive in some cases, a complete replacement.

There’s a really incredible company we worked with outta Chicago that we, they actually owned or operated an r and d operation here in Indiana, a company called Clear Flame Engines. So clear flame. It’s incredible. They’re taking diesel engines and making them run entirely on ethanol. So imagine this, if you will, a John Deere tractor, could be another brand, but we’re only gonna talk about John Deere.

So imagine a John Deere tractor running through a field, planting corn, caring for corn, powered by the corn that it grew up. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about sustainable, sustainable, sustainable, circular economy. All of that piece is there. And you know, it’s, it’s so easy, I think for folks to, you know, say, well, what about the food system and what’s happening?

Or [00:43:00] if you look at, if you look at producers, if you look at farmers at large, it is in their very best interest. It’s in their own economic interest to care for that asset to, to be wonderful stewards of that environment. Because that is back to the, the analogy of this is an outdoor manufacturing facility.

That’s their pallet, right? That’s their place of production. And so this notion of, well, we need to, we need to advance sustainability. We need to continue to innovate. We continue to need to use all the tools of plant science and crop protection and AgTech. We do. And we will, and we are. But it is an absolute misnomer to think that the, the guys and gals who get up every day to feed us.

Aren’t thinking about sustainable. That’s completely wrong. Yeah, it’s completely wrong. 

Matt: Well, Mitch, you, you’ve talked about so many amazing companies, uh, so many different trends happening in Ag Biosciences. Uh, the conferences that you’ve been to, the different countries you’ve been to, how do you stay plugged in?

And for those who maybe aren’t in the industry, but want to [00:44:00] keep an eye on what’s going on in Ag Biosciences, Where, what do you look at? Sure. And, and where should they pay attention? 

Mitch: So there are a handful of things that I do, you know, find the companies that you really like. Mm-hmm. I mean, I am a, as a former investor relations guy, I’m a, a complete junkie for all things stock.

So watching public companies, just really incredible trends that you can discern from earnings calls and those kinds of things. More macro, AgFunder news is a really powerful source of insight. TechCrunch obviously has some of those pieces. I think in addition to those, I would encourage you to go to agro novus indiana.com.

Of course. Uh, May 10th actually, we have an event coming up that we’re gonna talk about this idea of, of how do you use plant science to fuel the energy transition. And so we have folks from Cummins, we have folks from poet, the, the ethanol leaders. We have folks from Corteva joining us to have this exact conversation about.

We can do this. And it’s those kinds of conversations, Matt, where we, we strive to have those conversations and not just to, you know, have the [00:45:00] conversation, to have the conversations. I, my, my holy ambition, we, we have this grow 2024 vision or ambition that I mentioned. If it’s not to growth, we’re not doing it.

Yeah. I mean, this isn’t like, well, we’re gonna have events because we have events. No, we’re gonna have events because we want people to connect. We want people to say, Hey, look, I had an idea at this thing, and we’re gonna go create a company, or we’re gonna create a new product. That is why we exist. We exist to grow this economy.

We, we don’t exist to entertain, we don’t exist to do those. We exist to grow the economy and these kinds of events, the work that we do is 100% focused 

Matt: on that. That’s how it 

Mitch: happens. So, um, we’re probably getting close to lightning round. Yeah. You wanna run it today? Um, uh, sure. 

Matt: Uh, we’re down to our final two minutes, so we probably have qu time for three questions.

I’ll be brief. 

Mitch: Go. I just wanna say one last thing. The whole, the, the name of this podcast is Get in. Yeah. And like your, History and background is like such a perfect example of just get in right? What, whatever your background is, you come from the military or, or you, you come from, you [00:46:00] know, less means or you come from the SaaS industry and, and now all of these other industries have opened up that need all of these different types of That’s right.

Experiences and backgrounds and expertise. To bring these new innovations to light. It’s just get in. Yeah, just get in. Yeah. That’s great. All right, Mitch, we have come to the end here on, uh, our lightning round session. I’ve never done this. Okay. This is my first time I’ve ever done a lightning round, neither.

And, um, so we have come to the lightning round and, uh, we’re gonna ask three questions. Okay. And the, the, there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s, your answer is the right answer. I like it. Uh, and so, um, uh, here we go. You ready? I’m ready. All right. Outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem, what is Indiana known for?

Mm Gosh, that’s hard. 

Matt: First thing that comes to 

Mitch: mind. The Indiana State 

Matt: Fair. There you go. We haven’t had that 

Mitch: yet. Haven’t had that. What’s your favorite thing to buy? Uh, I am 100% of Ben’s pretzel fan. Nice. Yeah. What’d you gonna say? Fried Twinky. Come on, come on. Grateful for them, by the way. As, as the chairman of the Indiana [00:47:00] State Fair Commission, I’m grateful for their work.

Uh, incredible Fried Twinky vendor. Thank you. Yes. Oh, yes. I, I had forgotten about that. That’s true. Um, okay. Number two. What is a hidden gym in Indiana? I think a hidden gym in Indiana is the existing talent base that’s here. That is a generation or two disconnected from production agriculture, from Ag Bioscience, we have an inordinate amount of really smart, really sophisticated tech developers, data scientists, AI engineers.

And they all have a connection to something in rural, or at least something to food. Our opportunity is to connect them. My job is to connect them with the help of you both. I love it. Number three. Yes. Who is someone that we need to keep on our radar? Someone who is doing big things in terms of a company, anything that comes to mind?

Somebody’s doing big things, somebody doing big things. Uh, I’ll give you a couple. Elliot Parker at High Alpha Innovation, one of the [00:48:00] most incredible, most brilliant innovators and just a good human being. Keep an eye on him. The work that he’s leading with Big Cos to create small cos is extraordinary. Uh, you know, another one that I would say is I’m gonna give it to the Purdue College of Agriculture.

So the Purdue College of Agriculture, they, their Dean, Karen ppl, Dr. Karen ppl is now the rvp, her EVP of Research. So she is now over all research. There will soon be a new dean of the College of Agriculture in the work they’re doing to advance all of those sectors that I mentioned, food, animal health, plant science, ag tech, production, ag.

It is a gym. I mean, what, what Purdue does? I, I heard an, uh, a VC say it’s like the m MIT of the Midwest, and I, I’m not sure that Purdue would actually like that positioning, but I thought it was fascinating. The outside end perspective, they’re doing some amazing work. Big things are ahead. Yeah, just for the record produced like number one in mini categories.

Oh my gosh, yes. [00:49:00] Throughout the globe. Right. Well, this, this has been awesome. Thank you Mitch, the CEO of Agro Nova’s, uh, amazing life story, amazing work story about balance, work-life balance. I love it, and it was awesome to have you on. Get in. Thank you. Thanks, Mitch. This was awesome. Yeah, thanks so much.

Appreciate it guys. This 

Matt: has been get in a Powderkeg production in partnership with Elevate Ventures, and we wanna hear from you. If you have suggestions for a guest or a segment, reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana.

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