AI company in Boulder brings computer vision to farming

 BOULDER — DGAI Inc., an artificial-intelligence company that detects pests and blight on crops, has raised $285,000.

The company is offering future equity that is convertible into equity securities, according to a Form D filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Jan. 17.

The company was seeking $250,000 and raised a little more than that, co-founder Colin Ferrian told BizWest. One of the investors was Canopy Boulder, a cannabis-industry focused venture firm and accelerator.

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DGAI uses deep learning and computer vision to detect pests such as aphids, ladybugs or powdery mildew on crops. It has an algorithm trained using hundreds of photos of blighted crops. The algorithm can now detect what pests a crop might have, using photos taken from a smartphone an even low-resolution digital cameras.

Ferrian said the company is using the funds raised to build out the algorithm’s capabilities, with the ability to identify the top 10 pests and diseases U.S. crops face. The company is forming strategic partnerships with farming-equipment manufacturers, who will put devices on their equipment to capture images of crops, which will be used to further train the algorithm.

Canopy Boulder is an investor, Ferrian said, because the cannabis industry is keen to adopt technology that can help rid crops of pests harming the marijuana.

“General agriculture can tend to be more technology-adverse,” Ferrian said. “But with cannabis farmers, there is a lot of interest in using our technology.”