Few Hungarian innovations are dealt with in a Reuters video coverage, but SmartVineyard has been among them. Customers, however, do not turn up at the company’s doorstep by chance; a lot has to be done for success. There is fierce competition in wine making, therefore the system supplied by Quantislabs Kft. allowing for the reduction of costs as well as for the improvement of yields and quality mean a great deal of support. Based on data received from meteorological stations situated in the vineyards as well as those from weather forecasts, the software gives hints to farmers about the point in time most favourable for spraying the grape. The development of the software, however, was not so straightforward as it might sound: the 35-year-old Csaba Árendás had many issues to sort out.

The development of the hardware has been underway for six long years, and the development of a device withstanding harsh environmental conditions, with a stable power supply, and able to communicate online around the world was only one of the many challenges. Besides finding continuous production capacities the company had to offer a solution for the maintenance of a product installed for example in Chile. A similarly difficult challenge was to map up adequate distributors and to seek effective platforms to familiarise farmers in wine producing countries across the globe with the technology.

According to Csaba Árendás, managing director, the most pressing concern in the life of a startup is to decide on the strategic allocation of resources. Hardware and software development are paramount to their business; they firmly believe that a premium-quality product can successfully penetrate global markets. The enterprise has been this far financed by grants and prior earnings. Until now, they have failed to identify any professional investor or capital fund with the required standards of knowledge, therefore they are currently partnering with private investors. Their goal is to become a global player in the digitalisation of agribusiness. They have already started working on upgrades in order to ensure the adaptability of their hardware and software to nearly all plants or climatic conditions.