The Yield welcomes Costa Group CEO as Board Chair
Announcement posted by The Yield 18 Apr 2018
Melbourne, 18 April 2018 – Award-winning Australian AgTech company, The Yield, today announces Costa Group managing director and CEO, Harry Debney, as the Company’s new board chair.
Harry brings the experience of a long and successful career growing commercial companies on a global scale, and with it a decade of industry-leading expertise in food and agriculture.
Ros Harvey, founder and managing director at The Yield, said she and the board approached Harry due to his remarkable experience at the Costa Group, alongside his board director and non-executive director roles with leading Australian businesses.
“The Yield is on a mission to transform food and farming practices around the world with locally developed technology solutions,” said Ros. “We’re growing rapidly and plan to expand globally this year, taking The Yield technology to more farms, in more countries.”
“The wealth of knowledge Harry brings as board chair will be invaluable to The Yield and help us drive those ambitious growth plans at home and around the world,” continued Ros.
The Yield announced a successful Series A capital raise in April 2017, with backing from lead investor Bosch Global, KPMG and global investment marketplace AgFunder. Its Series A funding of A$6.5m took total investment in the company to A$11.5m. The Yield expects to undertake a Series B capital raise within 18 months to fund its global expansion.
Harry Debney has been the CEO of Costa Group since 2010, during which time he has established Costa as Australia’s leading horticultural business with a portfolio of produce categories including mushrooms, berries, citrus, glasshouse tomatoes and avocados.
“I have always searched for game-changing technology and I am convinced that The Yield will make a major contribution to the future success of the global agriculture industry,” said Harry.
“The agricultural industry has entered an exciting technology phase where we have an opportunity – through more effective real time measurement of key variables combined with predictive analysis – to reach new levels of crop performance, especially in terms of quality and yield,” concluded Harry.
Harry oversaw Costa Group’s IPO in July 2015, which was considered one of the share market's most successful private equity-backed IPOs.
Under Harry’s leadership, Costa has been at the forefront of developing innovative agronomic practices including protected cropping and substrate production techniques and establishing farming operations in China and Morocco.
The Yield launched Sensing+, its long-awaited microclimate sensing and 7-day predictions system for farmers, in October 2017. The company was named Most Innovative International Startup (Series A and Beyond) in the global AgFunder Innovation Awards in March 2018 and was recognised as a top-performing Microsoft partner globally in 2017.
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About The Yield
The Yield is an Australian agricultural technology company on a mission to transform food and farming practices with scalable digital technology. The Yield uses Internet of Things (IoT), data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to power its technology being used to solve real challenges at farm level and throughout the food chain. Its Sensing+ microclimate solution combines sensors and analytics to provide information and predictions that help growers make important on-farm decisions like when to irrigate, feed, plant, protect and harvest. More information at www.theyield.com
About Costa Group
Costa is Australia’s leading grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruit and vegetables, and operates principally in five core categories: berries, mushrooms, glasshouse tomatoes, citrus and avocados. Operations include approximately 3,500 planted hectares of farmland, 30 hectares of glasshouse facilities and seven mushroom growing facilities across Australia. Costa also has strategic foreign interests, with majority owned joint ventures covering six blueberry farms in Morocco and two berry farms in China.