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§ Private Profile · 1208 Nth 1st Street, Yakima, WA 98901
Telesense is a technology company.
TeleSense develops environmental monitoring solutions for post-harvest agricultural commodities. It deploys wireless sensors to track temperature, humidity, and CO2, integrating this data into a software platform. This technology offers actionable insights for managing grain quality, proactively reducing spoilage, and optimizing storage conditions for commodities across bins, ground piles, and transportation.
The company was co-founded in 2014 by Naeem Zafar and Nick Garner. Zafar, a serial entrepreneur with prior success in IoT ventures, aimed to apply intelligent technologies to democratize post-harvest agricultural data. Garner, an experienced engineer, was pivotal in developing the initial hardware and software platform, bringing advanced monitoring to this market.
TeleSense serves farmers, cooperatives, and large agricultural businesses with tools to mitigate spoilage and enhance profitability. Its solutions empower customers to make informed decisions about commodity storage and sales timing. The company's vision focuses on equipping the agricultural industry with continuous, data-driven insights to improve commodity management and minimize post-harvest losses.
Telesense has raised $16.7M across 2 funding rounds.
Telesense has raised $16.7M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Telesense has raised $16.7M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Telesense's investors include Spencer Maughan, Fulcrum Global Capital, Mindset Ventures, UPL, Congruent Ventures, Maersk Growth, Plug and Play Ventures, Radicle Growth, Trailhead Capital.
TeleSense is an ag-tech company founded in 2013 (with operations starting in 2014) that develops Industrial IoT solutions for real-time environmental monitoring of grain and food commodities during production, storage, transport, and retail.[1][2][4] It serves farmers, co-ops, storage managers, grain elevators, and agribusinesses like UPL, addressing post-harvest spoilage caused by excessive moisture, mold, insects, and poor environmental conditions through wireless sensors tracking temperature, moisture, relative humidity (RH), and CO2 levels.[1][3][4] The company's cloud-based app delivers actionable insights, alerts, historical charts, and guidance to reduce losses, improve storage life, and boost profitability, with $17.1M in total funding including a $10.2M Series B round.[1]
TeleSense's growth includes strategic partnerships, such as with UPL for expanded sales in post-harvest monitoring, and international expansion via leaders like Thomas Kylling in Europe.[1][2][3] Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, it generates $12.9M in revenue and employs around 53 people, focusing on simplifying monitoring over traditional cable-based systems.[1]
TeleSense emerged from the vision of its founders to tackle inefficiencies in agriculture—one of the world's largest markets—using IoT and AI.[2] Key leaders include Naeem Zafar (implied founder role), Nick Garner, and CTO Ali Ahmed, who brings 20+ years in software, data science, and AI; he previously led engineering at Doctella (acquired by Masimo in 2018) and founded Bitzer Mobile (acquired by Oracle in 2013).[2] Other executives like Shalin Parmar, Thomas Kylling (Managing Director Europe, with grain monitoring experience since 2005), and VP Glenn Adler (ex-Apple, HP) bolstered early technical and sales capabilities.[2]
The idea crystallized in 2013-2014 amid rising post-harvest losses, pivoting from manual inspections and cumbersome temperature cables to wireless sensors.[1][2][4] Early traction came through product development for grain bins, silos, piles, warehouses, and transport, culminating in funding rounds and the 2023 UPL partnership, which accelerated global reach.[1][3]
TeleSense rides the ag-tech and Industrial IoT wave, targeting the massive $1T+ global agriculture market where post-harvest losses exceed 10-20% due to spoilage—exacerbated by climate variability and supply chain demands.[1][4] Timing aligns with rising food security needs, IoT adoption in farming, and AI analytics for precision ag, as wireless tech scales amid labor shortages and sustainability pressures.[2][3]
Market forces like UPL's fumigant integration and remote monitoring trends favor TeleSense, influencing the ecosystem by minimizing waste, enabling data-driven decisions, and complementing gas detection tools—potentially cutting global grain losses by empowering stakeholders from farms to retail.[1][3]
TeleSense is poised for expansion through deeper UPL integration, European growth, and new applications like potato storage or broader commodities, leveraging its $17.1M funding for R&D in AI predictions and sensor durability.[1][2][4] Trends like climate-resilient ag, edge AI, and supply chain digitization will propel it, potentially evolving into a full-stack platform influencing food waste reduction globally. As IoT transforms agriculture's "final frontier" of storage/transport, TeleSense's wireless edge positions it to capture more of the post-harvest monitoring market, sustaining its mission to secure the world's food supply chain.[1][3]
Telesense has raised $16.7M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $10.2M Series B in October 2020.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 22, 2020 | $10.2M Series B | Spencer Maughan | Fulcrum Global Capital, Mindset Ventures, UPL | Announced |
| Aug 28, 2018 | $6.5M Series A | Spencer Maughan | Congruent Ventures, Maersk Growth, Plug And Play Ventures, Radicle Growth, Trailhead Capital | Announced |