irrigation
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POOLCORP
The pool business looks seasonal from the patio. From POOLCORP's side of the counter, it is a 455-location logistics machine built on chemicals, replacement parts and the quiet urgency of keeping 11 million pools working.
Ceres AI
Ceres AI (formerly Ceres Imaging) is an Oakland-based agtech company that flies fixed-wing aircraft over farmland with custom-built spectral sensors, then uses machine learning to turn the resulting imagery into plant-level insight on water, nutrients and crop stress. Founded in 2014 during California's drought, the company now serves growers, agribusinesses, lenders and insurers across four continents.
Arthur Chen
Arthur Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Verdi, a Vancouver-based agtech company building affordable, wireless precision irrigation automation for specialty crop farmers. A first-generation Taiwanese-Canadian engineer, Chen studied Engineering Physics at UBC on a Schulich Leader Scholarship before launching Verdi from an academic capstone project in 2020. By 2025, Verdi's IoT platform operates on over 5,000 acres across North America, has saved more than 100 million liters of water, and raised $9.5 million in venture funding - making farm automation accessible to the 95% of growers who've never been able to afford it.