By Darryn Keiller, CEO of WayBeyond

After a turbulent year for global markets, AgTech is stepping into 2025 with cautious optimism. Investment may have cooled, but make no mistake: this is not a retreat. It’s a realignment.

We’re now seeing the rise of smarter, more strategic capital: investors who know that building a resilient food system isn’t about quick exits or hype cycles. It’s about long-term tools, scalable systems, and actionable insights that enable us to grow better food with fewer resources in increasingly unpredictable conditions.

The 2024 investment by Paine Schwartz Partners in Costa Group, followed by Costa’s expansion into Laos, is a perfect example of what this new era looks like. It’s not just a land play- it’s a bet on data-driven agriculture at scale. Similarly, Yamaha’s creation of an agriculture division and Mitsubishi’s strategic agricultural investments reinforce a market trend toward long-horizon, performance-based thinking.

Data-driven farming is a serious asset class.

At WayBeyond, we’ve seen firsthand that while AI continues to generate headlines, it’s data—practical, real-time, field-level insight—that delivers value for growers. Growers don’t need more automation for the sake of it. They need tools that tell them:

• When should I irrigate?
  
• Where is pest pressure building?
  
• Is this crop still viable in this soil, under these conditions?
  

Digital agronomy isn’t about dashboards. It’s about decisions.

Platforms like FarmRoad are giving growers what they need most: clarity. And that clarity translates to better yield, higher quality, less waste—and a stronger, more resilient supply chain.

AgTech’s golden hour isn’t about buzzwords. It’s about alignment: between innovation and impact, between growers and insight, between capital and long-term food security.

We don’t just need to grow more. We need to grow smarter.

And the future will be built by those who understand that.