Automated cow-milking company Lely and AI company Connecterra enter strategic partnership

Dutch-based startup Connecterra, which used artificial intelligence to deliver insights to farmers, and Lely, a supplier of robotics and management systems for dairy farming, have agreed a “robust co-development and commercial partnership”.

The strategic partnership follows a pilot with Lely’s Digital Farming Group. The pilot program was designed to test an integration between Lely Horizon and Connecterra’s artificial intelligence platform, Ida.

The successful effort has resulted in commitments to several strategic initiatives. As a first step in the agreement, Lely will now license Ida Enterprise for use in their farm management system Lely Horizon.

Freddie Ruijs, head of digital farming at Lely, says: “We believe that digitization of dairy farming is key and needs to be handled with care. Integrating with partners like Connecterra to develop a strong platform helps farmers to bring out the value in their data.

“The experience in the pilot with Connecterra’s people and technology left a strong impression on the team and involved customers. We are excited to expand our efforts with Connecterra.”

In addition to the internal rollout, Lely and Connecterra will begin a multi-year, co-development initiative. Teams from both companies will expand from the pilot learnings, with a shared goal of further enhancing the farmer and advisor experience.

Nynke Slegten, director of product at Connecterra, says: “Connecterra’s mission is to empower farmers and advisors to improve productivity using Ida’s artificial intelligence. Our continued collaboration with partners like Lely will accelerate our mission and most importantly, deliver real results to real people.”

Successful co-development efforts could lead to a joint launch of new features, as well as opportunities for more Lely customers to give permission to incorporate their data and access Ida’s platform.

Yasir Khokhar, CEO of Connecterra, says: “The industry is poised to rapidly evolve, and we are trailblazing across multiple dimensions with this partnership. Together we have incredible potential to bring cutting-edge, transformative insights to thousands of farmers around the world.”