Commercializing Innovative AI

At their heart, AI technologies are driven by the training and modeling of trillions of data points. In many industries this kind of data is readily available. However, for some industries not known for embracing technological innovations, this essential well of data can be harder to come by. Two start-ups that first found their footing on WPI’s campus are tackling this problem by introducing AI solutions to two industries that have traditionally relied on outdated and time-consuming data collection processes: public infrastructure and agriculture.

The lack of data is a challenge, but it’s also a crucial opportunity, says Nathan Rosenberg ’19, CEO and co-founder of Farmblox, which describes itself as “a farm automation system, connecting equipment and in-field sensors to the internet so farmers can see everything and take action fast.” Rosenberg founded Farmblox in 2022, alongside his friends and business partners Marc Printz ’19 and John Dyer ’19.

“Farming is a multitrillion-dollar industry that’s stuck in the 1950s,” says Rosenberg. “It affects literally everyone on the planet, and it’s also one of the biggest causes for greenhouse emissions. We can make a huge impact, both as a business, but also socially and environmentally.”

Making a positive impact on society was also a driving force for the founders of Cyvl.ai, which has innovated the use of roadway mapping sensors for municipal governments.

“We’re making things easier using lots of different technology to help these governments manage critical assets that are super important for running everyday life,” says the company’s CEO Daniel Pelaez ’20, who co-founded Cyvl.ai (formerly Roadgnar) alongside friends Noah Parker ’20 and Noah Budris ’20 in 2021.

In the past few years, Cyvl and Farmblox have raised $10 million and $2.5 million, respectively. From college students tinkering in off-campus apartments to business owners tackling big challenges, the founders of Farmblox and Cyvl know what it takes to learn from the WPI community, as well as how to give back to it.

For Daniel Pelaez, the opportunity to use AI to improve the upkeep of public roadways and infrastructure became clear after a summer spent working for the public works department in Southbury, Conn.  “I saw major needs and problems with managing all the physical infrastructure,” Pelaez says. “They really had no easy way to do that. Instead, they were just using manual surveys.”

“It seems like a simple problem, but actually it’s quite severe,” Rosenberg says. “The question of ‘Oh, hey, do I have a leak and where is it?’ can be pretty extreme given the labor shortage these days.”  Using Farmblox tools, farmers can remotely monitor the status of their crops and equipment without the need to send their limited number of workers around the fields looking for the problem.

While both industries have a lot to gain from introducing AI technology, it hasn’t always been easy to sell these solutions. In the case of Cyvl, the team has learned how to communicate the benefits of their technology with local municipal governments.

“Selling to government agencies is extremely difficult,” Pelaez says. “Any industry where you’re going to be truly disruptive is going to have some of that pushback. Governments are also a very conservative customer base; they want to see lots of proven successes and no one really wants to be the guinea pig.”

With time and examples of success with their technology, Cyvl has begun to break through these barriers, he says. “We’re going to be publicly announcing some really large cities in the US that have signed on for our services. We’re opening up the front gates for companies like us who also recognize this massive opportunity in digitizing a nation’s infrastructure.”

While Farmblox’s clientele are private individuals instead of government agencies, Rosenberg says they’ve also had to overcome skepticism and gain trust when working with farmers.

“I can’t think of a more conservative market than farming agriculture,” he says. “The reason for that is if you go through one or two bad seasons where you lose a majority of your crop, you’re done. You’re out of business.”

Because of this fragility, farmers are unlikely to introduce anything “new or weird” into their farms for fear of disturbing their existing processes, Rosenberg says. Part of convincing farmers to try their technology is making it intuitive for them to use, especially in potentially challenging environments.

“Farmers’ hands are exposed to the cold air in the winter, so making a user interface that works for them when their fingers are freezing is also a challenge,” Rosenberg says. “But it’s a fun one and it’s very rewarding. They call you up—they don’t text, they don’t email—and say, ‘Oh, this is amazing.’”

Today, Cyvl’s technology can fit neatly on top of a municipal vehicle to capture LiDAR, camera, and sensor data about roadways and infrastructure. But when the company first got its start at WPI in 2019, using $1,500 in prize money the team had won during WPI’s Strage Innovation Awards, the technology was configured to fit onto a car’s bike rack. This design won the team first place and $10,000 in the second annual SICK Challenge.

Since then, Cyvl’s technology has come a long way. Parker, the company’s head of engineering, explains that their “secret sauce” lies in merging together datasets captured by imagery sensors and LiDAR.

At Farmblox, the company is focused on designing solar-powered sensors that can continuously monitor crops and provide remote data to farmers on metrics like soil moisture and pressure drops caused by leaks along collection lines, such as those involved in collecting maple sap. Right now, Farmblox focuses on applying its technology to “permanent crops,” such as vineyards or maple tree farms that don’t completely remove the crop at the end of each harvest season. This allows farmers to install the system once and leave it to collect data season after season.

This data is then aggregated and presented intuitively to farmers using an AI-powered automation platform. However, Rosenberg says, collecting data is half the battle when using AI in an industry like agriculture.  

While these companies work in different spaces today, they agree that the support they received at WPI was an essential part of their journeys.

“Honestly, the programs that WPI offered really helped us hit the ground running,” Parker says. “It was a much smaller scale back then, but they really helped us direct our focus.”

After participating in the Strage Innovation Awards, the Cyvl team also participated in the National Science Foundation-funded I-Corps program, a seven-week entrepreneurial training experience, and Tinkerbox, which provide seed money, mentorship opportunities, and educational workshops to further develop their ideas. In addition to winning some funding through these programs, Parker says that I-Corps, in particular, was extremely useful in helping them understand the broader problems start-ups face.

“I-Corps really drove home that before you start building anything serious, you need to understand the customer problem,” Parker says. “Dan came into this with a good broad picture of what we wanted to solve, but once we actually tried to put something into the market, we realized there are a lot of nuances. I-Corps helped us get more insight into what, specifically, our customers actually needed.”  

Farmblox founders went through these WPI programs as well, including completing the I-Corps program twice for different ideas, Rosenberg says. The founding trio took ID 2050 together, which teaches students about research design methods and analysis for social science research.

The team also worked closely with Gina Betti, WPI’s former longtime associate director of the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

“She was a key piece of our mentorship and learning over the years,” Rosenberg says. “She taught us about storytelling and getting to the meat of what you want to say, which is very important for investors and funding. It’s probably one of the most valuable things we learned.”   

Marc Printz, Farmblox’s co-founder, also recalls working closely with WPI’s former Executive Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Donna Levin, who taught him to focus on the smallest package of whatever product you’re providing when launching a business. “Ultimately, what she said is what we’re doing now by just offering sensors and controls,” Printz says. “That lesson has been quite instrumental.”

Farmblox has hired WPI alumni and received its first angel investment from a WPI alum, as well.

Despite their busy schedules, the Cyvl and Farmblox teams are happy to give back to the WPI community. Pelaez says he’s always happy to talk with alumni working on similar projects to share his experience. “We stay engaged and feel supported by the WPI community.”

The Farmblox team has made virtual appearances recently at WPI as well, including as guest speakers for the graduate entrepreneurship courses of Rosanna Garcia, the Paul R. Beswick Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship.

Big things are on the horizon for both companies as they look toward a new year. Farmblox is looking to expand its team and its impact by working with larger farms on the West Coast with a focus on monitoring water conservation. Cyvl is also expanding its team and is expecting big growth in 2025.

“Top cities in the U.S. are starting to implement our technology, and we’re expecting a huge snowball effect in 2025,” Pelaez says.  “We’re going to be hiring like crazy over the next few months.”

While AI may be on every business owner’s mind right now, Farmblox and Cyvl are showing firsthand how it can be just one part of a sustainable and impactful business. “AI has become a new hot thing across every industry, but when we talk about our solutions and services, we don’t even really focus on the AI aspect,” Pelaez says. “We’re not building another widget,” he says. “We’re building a technology to solve real problems in this country.”