Specialty feed and animal data company Agmine Solutions just brought in $75,000 in funding from Carthage Intellectual Capital Management.
Tom D’Alfonso, Agmine President
“It all came together at a virtual Venture Cafe event,” Agmine president Tom D’Alfonso told the 4thEst8. “One of the principals of Carthage was also on the call and he instant messaged me right after I was talking.”
Agmine is a data and feed formulation company. The data side puts sensors in place to track conditions for feed animals like chickens and cows. Based on that data, the formulation side of the business quickly puts in place food and water additives to mitigate health issues (like heat) and maximize feed animal production. D’Alfonso launched Agmine in Oct. 2013, and added the data component in 2015. He says the company has no full time employees, but uses about a half dozen part time ‘stake holders’ to handle sales and IT development.
Carthage, founded in 2011, uses a non-equity investment vehicle for companies generating revenue that involves using a company’s intellectual property as collateral.
“We were looking at a different way of applying a product in a feed mill and it required engineering, And that means people, equipment and testing,” D’Alfonso said of the deal. “So, in one sense, we allow Carthage rights to the intellectual property and we pay royalties until we acquire back fully, or work together to develop other applications and perhaps other industries… it really made us focus on making sure that we are not only creating value for our customers, which was our primary objective, but we’re really thinking about what we’re doing that is unique.”
Prior to this, D’Alfonso says he’s raised about a million dollars through traditional debt instruments, some of which could be converted into equity.
Links:
Carthage Intellectual Capital Management
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