A Chilean startup is tackling agriculture's massive water problem with AI that's already helping 260 farms slash water use by 30% while boosting crop yields up to 20%. Instacrops processes 15 million data points hourly to revolutionize irrigation timing, and they're presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt this month as part of Startup Battlefield.
Agriculture drinks up 70% of the world's fresh water, and in countries like India or Chile, that number jumps above 90%. For Mario Bustamante, founder of Instacrops, this isn't just a statistic - it's a crisis hitting his Chilean homeland hard. "Lack of water is a big issue here," he told TechCrunch.
But Bustamante's betting AI can flip the script on farm water waste. His startup pivoted dramatically from deploying IoT frost sensors to building sophisticated irrigation intelligence, and the numbers are staggering. Across 260 farms, Instacrops is cutting water use by up to 30% while simultaneously boosting crop yields by as much as 20%. The company's part of Startup Battlefield and will demo at TechCrunch Disrupt later this month in San Francisco.
The transformation from hardware to AI completely restructured the company's operations and scale. "We are processing - more or less - 15 million data points per hour. Almost 10 years ago, that was the amount for a year," Bustamante explained. "We're reducing cost, team members, and generating more impact with less."
Instacrops' LLM models digest over 80 parameters to determine optimal irrigation timing across different farm zones. The system pulls in soil moisture, humidity, temperature, pressure, crop yield data, and NDVI metrics derived from satellite imagery. Farmers receive irrigation advisories directly on their mobile phones through the company's chatbot app or WhatsApp integration - and Bustamante predicts they'll go "100% WhatsApp because it's a universal tool for any farmer."
For more technologically advanced operations, Instacrops can directly control irrigation systems, automating the entire water management process. The startup focuses on high-value crops across Latin America, including apples, avocados, blueberries, almonds, and cherries. Farmers pay an annual per-hectare fee for access to the irrigation insights.
The company's trajectory reflects the broader shift from commoditized IoT hardware toward AI-driven agriculture solutions. As frost detection sensors became widely available and cheap, Instacrops evolved into something far more valuable - a comprehensive water optimization platform that addresses one of agriculture's most pressing challenges.
