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Map of Agriculture
Tax relief
Map of Agriculture Group “Map of Ag” is being established to provide data, software & communication products for the agricultural sector.
About Map of Agriculture
Map of Ag will aim to help farmers across the world improve their yields, their performance, their businesses and their returns on capital employed. The Map of Ag products are designed to be accessible from mobile, tablet and PC devices.
The Founders of Map of Ag are Forbes Elworthy and Jim Williams, the founder of Precision Prospecting Ltd (“Precision Prospecting”), a research provider with data on 72,000 UK farmers[1]. Precision Prospecting is intended to be a full subsidiary of Map of Ag by the time this fund-raise closes.
Forbes’s family have been NZ farmers for several generations. Forbes worked at Goldman Sachs and other investment banks in London in fixed income markets. Forbes then created a software business for pricing fixed income investment instruments which he successfully exited to CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) making an over 6 x return on investment for his investors[2].
Following the exit to CME, Forbes created Craigmore Sustainables, a farmland investment funds group, responsible for £200 m of farming assets[3]. Map of Agriculture Limited was born out of Craigmore Sustainables as its research arm.
Map of Agriculture Limited, now an independent company, provides farm decision support, budgeting and benchmarking tools to the Craigmore farms.
In early 2016, by the time this fund-raise closes, it is anticipated Map of Agriculture Group will have acquired Precision Prospecting Ltd and Map of Agriculture Ltd. to create Map of Agriculture Group, to directly integrate data for, the Directors estimate, a network of 80,000 farmers.
[1] http://www.precisionprospecting.com/who-we-are.htm
Why now?
The Company is addressing what it believes are the following opportunities:
- The Farming industry is rapidly “digitizing”[4]. As this occurs, decisions that were once “rules of thumb” are becoming analytically supported decisions.
- Farming, a sector that “makes 20 decisions a day and must get 19 of them right” [5], is a data-rich sector which provides many opportunities for improved decision support and process automation tools.
- Farm value chains need independent “integrator” platforms such as Map of Ag to assist specialist suppliers to integrate offerings to the farmer.
- Map of Ag, through its two subsidiaries, currently has 190 contracts in core UK and NZ markets, reaching 80,000 farmers[6], providing a strong base for growth.
- The Directors estimate that worldwide there are approximately 5,000 Farm Service Organisations (“FSOs”) of sufficient scale to afford Map of Ag’s services.
[4] http://www.agriculture.com/news/technology/digital-agriculture-future-is-now_6-ar50669
[5] http://www.craigmore.com/commentaries/ten-lessons-for-a-financial-farmer/
What sets Map of Agriculture apart?
Map of Ag believes its key value add is the data integration and “productisation” services the Company plans to provide. Map of Ag aims to link data from different sources (farm input, processor, financial, production) and help farmers to visualise this in simple formats. Map of Ag seeks to be a “platform” not just a single tool. It believes that farmers do not wish to have to integrate multiple services and also that they seek integrated, multi-product platforms that can optimise as much of their information and communication needs as possible.
Map of Agriculture’s products are intended to link farmers to their Farm Service Organisations
To help make their business decisions, the Company believes that farmers need data from markets, from other farmers and from other information sources (e.g. governments, weather services, land agencies, commodity markets). They then consume this data within real time operational, budget, benchmarking and compliance tools.
Meanwhile, it believes that Farm Service Organisations (“FSOs”) such as seed suppliers, agricultural banks and machinery manufacturers, also seek farming data to help them understand their own market, sales opportunities and risks. And to enhance their services to farmers.
Map of Ag plans to serve both farmers and FSOs. The Company also builds products which “link” famers with their service providers. In this sense, Map of Ag acts as a connectivity platform.
Company synergies
The companies in the Group aim to create synergies through sharing data, technology and expertise; and having access to each other’s marketing/distribution channels. For example, software products developed by Map of Agriculture Ltd are marketed by the Precision Prospecting sales team; whilst data collected from Precision Prospecting are displayed in the Map of Agriculture Ltd products and databases Although it is anticipated that, by the time this fund-raise closes in early 2016, the acquisition of these companies by MOAG will have only recently been completed. Precision Prospecting Ltd and Map of Agriculture Ltd have been working together on client projects since 2015.
Product Scalability
Map of Ag Group builds digital products that enable the Group to scale costs. A range of products are on offer but all are built on the same frameworks. All use the same reference data and all are marketed to the same client base in each country where Map of Ag builds distribution.
Unlike the farm consultant, who may be building customised excel analyses for each query, Map of Ag is aiming to capture margin by “re-using” as many standard components as possible.
What is the offer and how will Map of Agriculture use the funds?
To support growth, Map of Ag is seeking investment of £2.4 - £4.6m in February and March 2016, which is offered through the issuing of a minimum 24,000 up to 46,000 shares (between 18,000 and 40,000 shares available to CrowdBnk investors) in the Company at a price of £100, for a stake of between 34.39% and up to 50.12% (between 25.79% and up to 43.58% available to CrowdBnk investors) in the Map of Ag Group.
The Group intends to use the funds raised to increase the product development team & resources to bring five currently “alpha” stage software products to scalable, commercial solutions. The company also plans to expand operations to other geographies.
Shareholders investing less than £100,000 will hold their shares through a nominee account. Terms & Conditions for the nominee account are posted on the Map of Ag page on the CrowdBnk website.
Exit Strategy
The Group recognises that investors will likely seek a liquidity event. The preferred plan is to list the shares of Map of Ag Group on a recognised stock exchange. If this is not able to be achieved, then a “trade sale” or whole of business sale of Map Of Ag will be evaluated.
Potential Market Size
Map of Ag estimates that the potential market for agricultural data digital services will develop over the next 5-10 years to a value of $10 – 20bn. This estimate is supported by research from PA Consulting [7].
Map Of Ag Growth Strategy
Map of Ag believes it has the management track record, the product market experience, and an understanding of the extremely rapid growth strategy, including both organic and acquisitive growth, thatwhich will be needed to build a world-leading agricultural information platform.
Any possible exits are contingent upon a successful fundraise and implementation of the business plan.
[7] PA consulting “digitising agriculture” report: http://www.paconsulting.com/our-thinking/digitising-agriculture/
| Raised | £3,010,100.00 |
| Days to go | Completed Funding period ended on 30 April 2016 |
| Target | £2,400,000 |
| Min. Investment | £5,000 |
| Equity on Offer | 34.39% |
| Investors (19) | |
Business Contact
Wardington Manor
Wardington
Banbury
OX17 1SW
The Map of Agriculture Team
Forbes Elworthy
CEO
Forbes founded Credit Market Analysis (CMA), a real time financial price discovery service and data community which served over 200 credit market clients and was sold to Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2008. Subsequently, Forbes launched an agricultural fund management business, Craigmore Sustainables. In 2012, Craigmore spun off Map of Agriculture Limited, which was then its farm financial returns benchmarking database. Forbes remains chair of Craigmore but as CEO of Map of Agriculture Group, he focuses on building it up as a global provider of farming information and communication solutions.
Jim Williams
COO
Jim co-founded Precision Prospecting with Kenn Garroch in 1993. Jim has more than 22 years’ experience in market research and research-driven marketing sectors specialising in the agriculture, veterinary and food supply chain sectors. Jim has particular expertise in data analysis, market potential modelling, customer segmentation, profiling, brand awareness, brand development and marketing strategy. As COO, he will work to ensure the successful completion of between 300 and 500 projects every year.
Charles Elworthy
Head of Research
Charles is a Visiting Business Fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University. Charles was previously Head of Research at Craigmore Sustainables LLP, farmland and forestry investment manager.
Charles read economics at Cambridge before joining HSBC as an international officer. He returned to academia and completed an MA in International Relations at Yale, followed by a doctorate and habilitation in Political Science at the Free University of Berlin. Charles developed a foundation in a Schloss on the German-Polish border after the reunification of Germany.
Charles read economics at Cambridge before joining HSBC as an international officer. He returned to academia and completed an MA in International Relations at Yale, followed by a doctorate and habilitation in Political Science at the Free University of Berlin. Charles developed a foundation in a Schloss on the German-Polish border after the reunification of Germany.
David Worlock
Strategy Support
Awarded the George Henderson Award for lifetime achievement for his work in publishing and information marketplaces (http://www.davidworlock.com/about/) . David Worlock is a Cambridge History graduate who joined Thomson Reuters as a trainee in 1967, and subsequently worked in educational and academic publishing before managing Thomson’s school-based publishing as Group Executive Publisher in the late 1970s. Between 1980-85 he was CEO of the pioneer development of EUROLEX, the UK’s first online service for lawyers, subsequently acquired by Reed Elsevier in 1985. In that year he founded Electronic Publishing Services Ltd, a research and consultancy company based in London and New York which has worked alongside the digital content industry in developing strategies for products and markets in consumer and business sectors.
Ed Harding
Senior Developer & Chief Architect
Ed has led the technological design and development of Map of Agriculture Ltd since 2013. He brings extensive experience of full-stack design, development and delivery of high volume, high throughput transaction, analytic & visualisation systems. B.Sc. in Applied Physics, M.Eng in VLSI Design.
Alastair Grizzell
Product Coordinator
Studied for an MBA in Farm Management from RAU in 2013 after working for 10 years at Intel in key financial and senior retail strategy roles.
Ian Kellett
Investment Banking Advisor
Previously MD at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson leading their equity research team in the consumer staples sectors. Founded Hambledon Vineyard.
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- Review of business plan, competition and key contracts – ensuring all statements and claims are backed up with data and source.
- Review of ownership structure and capitalization, ensuring clarity of the value of the shares that investors are buying.
- Valuation negotiation to ensure that the investment offer is fair for all parties.
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