The business model and the potential for adoption were thoroughly analysed, and a series of talks with potential clients (insurance companies) and end-users of the technology (farmers) were held. This was extremely helpful in defining the business model, as well as fine-tuning the product-market fit. Talks included other companies as well, for side business models and project scalability.

The primary business model is generating the revenues through franchise and directly targets the insurance companies. Our innovation will come in the form of a software product that can be integrated into the insurance company’s IT system. The two following business models were drawn in collaboration with an interviewed stakeholder, a C-level representative of an insurance company, who wished to remain anonymous.

Firstly, the product will be offered to farmers via insurance companies, which will deal with customer acquisition and revenue collection. A percentage of the revenue (e.g. 10%) will be diverted to Cropt as the franchise fee and for the system maintenance. The secondary business model targets the insurance companies indirectly, via reinsurers. Insurance companies typically transfer a certain amount of the premiums (e.g. 80%) to reinsurance companies, which collect premiums from a number of companies, thus diversifying their portfolio and lowering the risk of the system as a whole. It is in their interest to include as many insurance companies in their system as possible, and collect as much premium funding as they can. For this reason, they are offering new product lines to insurance companies, which are expected to acquire new customers and increase their own earnings, thus subsequently increasing the earnings of the reinsurance company.

Cropt had 11 meetings in total, with:

1. Insurance companies. This is the company’s primary group of clients and the discussions were very fruitful, as they helped Cropt to better understand the problems with crop insurance they are facing in their daily activities
2. These meetings helped the company understand the problem from the conflicting point of view and get to know what kind of insurance schemes would satisfy the end-users
3. IT companies. Cropt spoke with the fellow IT companies that are also engaged in blockchain driven insurance in other sectors than agri-food, to get acquainted with the obstacles they faced and the lessons learnt
4. Other potential adopters. With them, the company developed alternative business strategies for secondary business models that would support the primary one and generate additional revenues.
5. Investors – for taking the startup to a higher level.

For the Alliance project, Cropt hired 2 additional people, one data scientist, who led the development of the drought index and satellite processing pipeline and 1 developer, who led the development of Alliance platform and integrated blockchain, satellite image processing and other services into a single system. The company’s plan in the next 6 months is to hire an additional business expert, who would help Cropt present its product adequately, ensure traction and acquire additional investors and clients.