Claas, through its Corporate Venture Capital unit Seed Green Innovations, has made an investment in Pheno-Inspect, a German AgTech startup specializing in AI-driven, image-based agronomic field analysis. The pioneering technology enables a significant acceleration of data-driven processes in agriculture.
Pheno-Inspect, a spin-off from the University of Bonn’s excellence cluster PhenoRob, has developed a cloud-based platform that transforms high-resolution drone imagery into actionable agronomic insights. The solution enables farmers, agribusinesses and research organizations to analyze crop development, stress factors and treatment effects quickly, objectively, and at scale – without specialized hardware or external service providers. “Pheno-Inspect represents the kind of innovation we are looking for: practical, scalable technology with clear value for farmers and agricultural partners. Our investment is designed as a long-term partnership focused on jointly shaping the future of digital agriculture,” emphasizes Martin von Hoyningen-Huene, CTO of the Claas Group.
Accelerating data-driven processes
The investment reflects a shared vision of accelerating data-driven, sustainable agriculture. By combining Pheno-Inspect’s advanced AI and software capabilities with Claas’ expertise in agricultural machinery and farming workflows, both partners aim to unlock new levels of precision, efficiency, and usability in digital agronomy.
Christian Poschmann, Senior Vice President Global Engineering Technology at Claas, adds: “Digitizing agriculture boosts efficiency, sustainability, and competitiveness. Pheno-Inspect’s AI platform meets this need with high-resolution field analyses, which enhance current digital methods. The investment in Pheno-Inspect is a targeted move to access and support innovative digital agronomy technologies early.”
Dr. Philipp Lottes, Co-Managing Director and CTO at Pheno-Inspect highlights: “Closing our first financing round marks an important milestone in Pheno-Inspect’s development. We are excited about the potential of our partnership with Claas and will use the new capital to further expand our interdisciplinary team and consistently advance our AI technology. With our FarmAnalyzer platform, we are making single-plant-level field analytics available across the entire growing season—practical, cost-effective, and directly usable for farmers, without the need for specialized hardware.”
Dr. Josef Exler, Co-Managing Director and Chief Growth Officer at Pheno-Inspect adds: “Our ambition is to deliver measurable value to farmers and custom applicators across Europe – particularly through reductions in crop protection and fertilizer inputs, as well as by digitizing the traditional field scouting process. From this perspective, the participation of a leading agricultural machinery company such as CLAAS sends a strong signal for the growing relevance of digital agronomy and AI-based decision support in the future of farming”.
Resource efficiency through AI: Pheno-Inspect generates precise application maps for targeted spot spraying, enabling potential pesticide reductions of up to 95% and significantly lowering input costs.
Automated data acquisition: A camera drone captures hi res imagery of crop rows. Pheno-Inspect’s AI processes this data to digitize field scouting, eliminating the need for specialized sensor hardware while delivering precise agronomic insights.
The Pheno-Inspect FarmAnalyzer platform transforms high-resolution drone images into precise agronomic data, automatically distinguishing between crops and weeds to determine stand density.
