CULTA Inc. which is a Japan-based agtech startup established in 2017, aims to make small farmers' business environment good. We create solutions for each part of stakeholders of agricultural value chain by applying technology.
Our first mission is to make plant breeding faster by using technology like image analysis, 3D model analysis and data science.
Plant breed relates to flavor, nutritions, crop yield, disease resistance and so on. But developing a new breed takes so long time. In addition, we are facing very fast climate change now so farmers want new breed that can cope with climate change. Therefore to make breeding faster has a big impact to whole value chain of agriculture.
We are currently developing ZACHRO, a management application to be used by breeders. It will improve the efficiency of breeding operations.
We plan to release a beta version in April 2021.
We are also concurrently developing and demonstrating image and 3D analysis technologies that automatically measure plants. We will increase the resolution of data on test varieties and provide insights that were not previously available.
The 3D model of broccoli shown above was created using video taken with an iPhone. There are many other materials about 3D analysis that I would like to show you, but for various reasons, I will not disclose them here at this time. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us.
Our engineers and researchers, many of whom have studied agricultural science, are engaged in creative development and research.
Founder, CEO
Born in 1993. Graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology. Completed the master's course at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences. In the master's course, he conducted research on remote sensing of farmland using drone images. During his studies, he was involved in the research of overseas agricultural startups and the business construction of plant sensing startups. He established CULTA Inc. while he was a graduate student.
Researcher
Graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Agriculture. Completed the master's course at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the University of Tokyo. Currently in the second year of a doctoral course at the same university. In addition to research activities at the university, he is in charge of technical support. President's Award of the University of Tokyo. The University of Tokyo President's Award, JSPS Ikushi Award. Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (DC1). He is a visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore, and is engaged in the development of plant image analysis technology using 3D point clouds, image analysis, and AI technology.
Web Engineer
Graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University, and has a wide range of development experience including data analysis using R and Python, Android application development, and web application development using Django. He won the first prize in "BUSTER", a development battle between teams organized by TechBowl Inc. He is currently a master's student at the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, and is engaged in functional analysis of rice genes.
Researcher
Born in 1997. Graduated from Nagaoka University of Technology, Faculty of Engineering. Completed the master's course at the Graduate School of Agriculture, the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Currently in the first year of a doctoral course at the same university. He has done research on the construction of a plant factory system in Mongolia, and on the development of an autonomous farming system using small robots. Currently, he is engaged in the development of plant image analysis technology using 3D point clouds.
Web Engineer
Born in Tokyo in 1995. Grew up in Kitami. Grew up surrounded by snow, onions, seals, and Pokemon. He has been interested in programming since his childhood, and majored in robotics at Chiba Institute of Technology. While in school, he interned in robot engineering, started his own business, and studied abroad at the University of Toronto. He is currently working on the front-end of a live-streaming platform at an IT company, and has joined CULTA as a sideline, where he is in charge of the front-end of web applications.