A simple, wholesome platform for the optimization of agricultural activities at your service!

We’ve all witnessed how inefficient farming and agriculture can affect our own lives and the environment, as well as increase the costs of production. The evergoing growth of the world’s population, the poor quality of the soil, paired with the global warming all make agriculture one of the ruthless industries.

xFarm Technologies, a platform developed by Swiss-Italian farmers, was founded in 2017 with the sole reason to ease farmers’ work and day-to-day life.

Since the platform was launched, numerous farmers, associations, cooperatives, agronomists, and insurance agents started using it.

Martino Poretti, Mateo Vanotti, and Salvatore Ferullo, the three co-founders, managed to gather enough information and precisely diagnose the problems of today’s agriculture - they formed a team, built the platform, and saw it skyrocket.

Read on to discover the details that contributed to the founding of xFarm, the right hand of today’s farmers.

How the Seeds Were Sown

Martino Poretti and Mateo Vanotti, both of Italian descent, were born and raised in Switzerland, a country where agriculture is considered art!

On the other hand, Salvatore Ferullo is originally from Milan, Italy.

Nonetheless, the Italian origin of Martino and Mateo is easily recognizable by their names and last names, and maybe that’s the reason why they grew attracted to agriculture even in their tender teenage years.

We’re all aware of the love Italians have for the earth and the plants, weeds, and animals grazing therein, so it’s really no surprise these knowledge-driven young men will take matters into their own hands and affect the way agriculture evolved.

However, not all three founders are from identical backgrounds. The reason behind this is that they studied at different universities, took on different subjects, and specialized in different technological and agricultural fields.

For example, Mateo Vanotti decided to enroll in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ) in 2001 at the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. While there, Mateo managed to acquire some vital skills in software development, structuring solutions, and other IT skills.

By this time, Salvatore Ferullo was still a young guy not so much interested in business or agriculture, spending his days doing the best he could! Nonetheless, Martino Poretti was attending the same university as Mateo Vanotti and in 2000, he started his Master’s studies in the field of Mechanical Engineering.

Mateo managed to earn himself a Master’s degree in 2005 and it wasn’t long before he started working as a consultant in two Swiss companies, Amstein, and Walthert.

In the meantime, Mateo got his Information Technology and Electrical Engineering degree and got busy studying to get his Master's degree in Management at the Technology and Business Department. He graduated in 2007 and quickly infiltrated the financial and agricultural sphere of work.

By this time, our third co-founder, Salvatore Ferullo enrolled at the Department of Information Technology at Università Degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca in Lombardy, Milan. The path was paved, only destiny could now interfere!

Sprouting of the xFarm Seeds

The protagonists of our story were very persistent and dedicated in their everyday routine and in basically no time, they started making progress in their fields of work.

In 2008, Martino, as the oldest one on the team, already started working in the Swiss financial consulting company, Orbium. There he managed to climb up the organizational ladder and slowly reach the positions of consultant, senior consultant and eventually becoming a manager.

Martino got in-depth knowledge of different agricultural business practices and how he could combine his mechanical engineering and financial knowledge. We can easily spot the connection here - the most logical intersection between these two industry branches is agriculture.

On the other hand, Mateo was also determined to further develop his skills and started as a trainee in SR Technics and Genge & Thoma AG. After only one year of training, Mateo applied to Martino Poretti’s company, Orbium, and managed to get hired.

Meanwhile, the young enthusiast Salvatore Ferullo was working as a software developer in many companies in the region. Some of the most notable ones are Lutech, Iflap Srl, Drivek, WCM Solutions, and Abee. By 2017, he was already a full-stack developer at Holding Italiana Quattordicesima in Milano, Lombardy.

The sprouting has already begun!

By the beginning of 2018, all of the co-founders of xFarm persisted in climbing the ladder of success, driven by the idea of their agricultural software attracting the targeted prospects.

As the young enthusiasts started entering the agricultural industry, they were faced with competition coming from companies like Seevider, Fleet Complete Germany, Famosa, and Locator X.

The xFarm Seeds Start Budding

In 2018, Mateo and Martino already had extensive in-depth experience in programming and possessed the know-how of the way IT technology could be used to improve the farming process. They’ve been working together for several years and managed to develop a beneficial relationship.

On the other hand, in 2018, Salvatore was a well-accomplished developer who could program and code almost anything he would set his mind to.

The three of them met in Italy and decided that the time was right for them to act and make a change in the outdated ways agriculture was handled. Mateo, Martino, and Salvatore decided to establish a company with headquarters in Milano, Italy, which will serve all types of farmers and associates.

The xFarm technology was launched as a SaaS platform for digitalization and optimization of the farming process. Their platform was designed for supporting precision agriculture, decision support, sensors, and many other tools into a single integrated workspace.

Over the years, the company developed many solutions and practical tools for farmers. Currently, the number of free features that farmers get mounts up to 16. There are also 10 professional services, more than 30 compatible sensors, and 18 premium modules available for all xFarm users.

How the Seeds Were Watered

Every start-up needs to be accelerated by finances provided by companies and associations supporting innovative solutions. This was also the case with xFarm Technologies.

The first seed funding round was set up on Jan 2, 2018, and the finances gathered a not-so-shabby sum of 350.000 euros. Mateo, Martino, and Salvatore were satisfied with how much their platform managed to raise to be able to direct their platform on the right path and wisely waited for the second series of funding.

Another Series A of funding happened on December 4, 2019, raising a whopping sum of 3 million euros for the company. This series was funded by TiVenture and United Venture, two leading venture capital and seed investment funds companies.

Although the three co-founders strongly believed in their products, they were baffled to see how much their company interested investors, and with the growth in recent years, the three friends and colleagues started thinking about going IPO. This would mean that anybody from the public could buy xFarm stocks and shares. However, this decision isn’t officialized yet and we’ll have to wait for further reports from the management.

The Future of xFarm Technologies

The company is currently headquartered in Milano, Lombardy, Italy, and has more than 50 employees.

The busy bees at xFarm provide solutions for farmers, associations, cooperations, agronomists, contractors, dealers, and insurance companies.

Nonetheless, xFarm Technologies plans a European and Latin American expansion, considering the huge number of farmers and cooperations in these areas.

XFarm plans to constantly introduce new tools and maybe merge with other companies and associations in the industry. The management plans to further expand the current offerings and include even more IoT sensors and study more types of crops. These changes will open the way to new markets and customers, and hopefully, new partnerships across the ocean.

In the next few years, we can expect to hear more about xFarm Technologies and its incredible solutions in the agriculture industry.

This platform is now worth more than half a billion and still counting, so, here’s to a billion new crops for the world!