Agro Reply has raised $500K in seed funding from Turbostart and Gold House Ventures to put an AI crop advisor behind the counter at agri-input dealers and farmer cooperatives in South Africa.
The premise is that most farmers get their first crop advice where they buy their inputs, but dealers are too busy and there aren't enough agronomists to go around. Agro Reply's advisor runs on WhatsApp under the dealer's own name: farmers send a photo of a plant to flag disease, pest damage or nutrient stress, then ask follow-up questions by text or voice in English, Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa or Sesotho. Each recommendation comes with a short how-to video, and dealers set the approved products, dose ranges and escalation rules the advisor works from. When the AI isn't confident, it asks another question or hands the case to a human. The company says it is onboarding its first pilot dealers and cooperatives.
