Earlier this year, we looked at how Southeast Asia’s agriculture and food sectors are rapidly embracing technology and innovation. In response to that, major agritech and agriculture events across the region gather farmers, startups, investors, and industry experts to showcase their new solutions, exchange knowledge, and foster partnerships.
How do we know this exactly? Agriculture still underpins the economies of countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, employing over 100 million people. Although it is on a large scale, what remains uneven is productivity itself.
Smallholders are battling climate volatility, rising input costs, and fragmented landholdings. Now, agritech startups are trying to find ways to redefine how farmers access information, credit, and markets altogether. This is done by integrating precision tools and digital platforms, which help build a new ecosystem of connected farming that blends data, sustainability, and commercial viability.
Here are the top 5 startups revolutionising agritech in Southeast Asia
Frontline innovation in the fields
The biggest change in Southeast Asian agriculture lies in the integration of real-time data into everyday decision-making. Across the region, we have seen features such as sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) devices helping farmers in their daily operations, such as monitoring soil health, temperature, and water usage. These allow them to optimise inputs and reduce waste significantly.
On top of that, drones are also becoming a common device for mapping and spraying, which helps provide smallholders with tools that were once reserved for industrial farms.
Indonesia has emerged as one of the most active hubs for such experimentation. For example, local startups are innovating end-to-end systems that combine features including agronomic advisory, supply chain traceability, and predictive analytics.
One of the most obvious examples is Elevarm, which raised USD 4.25 million in March this year in an effort to expand its AI-powered agriculture tools that already support over 15,000 farmers in Indonesia. The platform blends digital recommendations with local farming knowledge, which helps smallholders increase yields and manage resources more sustainably.
In Vietnam and Thailand, on the other hand, similar platforms are also becoming popular. Precision farming startups, for instance, are introducing pest management tools and data-driven irrigation, while mobile marketplaces are connecting farmers directly with buyers, which cuts out the usual middlemen who often squeeze margins. These innovations are both improving efficiency and creating digital identities for farmers, enabling access to credit and insurance for the first time.
Building scalable business models
While technology is a very promising aspect in scaling the sector regionally, it is far from straightforward. Startups now are constantly finding ways to adopt hybrid business models that combine technology with local partnerships to ensure commercial viability.
The reason behind this is “input-as-a-service models”, for instance, which allow farmers to rent rather than own expensive equipment such as sensors or drones. In this case, digital marketplaces are also using transaction data to underwrite microloans, which helps bridge the gap between farmers and financial institutions.
A clear example in a country like Indonesia is its agritech market. They have a growing number of platforms experimenting with aggregation models that pool smallholder demand to negotiate better prices on inputs and distribution.
This “farm-to-platform” approach has allowed startups to reach scale in a short period of time while at the same time keeping costs manageable. But, of course, profitability still depends on overcoming structural issues such as connectivity gaps and limited logistics in rural areas.
Enabling ecosystems for climate-smart growth
The public sector and regional institutions play a crucial role in driving digital agriculture. Agritech programmes such as Grow Asia Innovation Challenge are gathering innovators, policymakers, and investors all in one place to accelerate solutions for climate-resilient agriculture. These programmes are often supported by the ASEAN Secretariat and international partners, and the initiatives always aim to bridge the gap between promising pilots and scalable impact.
On the other hand, governments across the region are aligning with this momentum. For example, Vietnam and Indonesia are now integrating smart farming into their national digital economy blueprints, while Singapore’s agritech sandbox continues to incubate next-generation food technologies. We can see that the collective goal is clear, which is to strengthen food security and transition towards low-carbon agriculture.
Looking ahead, we can expect the agritech sector in Southeast Asia continuing to scale in its next phase of growth. As AI and IoT tools become more accessible, the focus is shifting from experimentation to ecosystem building. Key growth arcs are emerging in soil analytics, input optimisation, and supply chain traceability, each addressing a different pressure point in the value chain.
If fintech defined the last decade of Southeast Asian innovation, agritech could define the next. It speaks to the region’s most fundamental challenges, food, climate, and livelihoods, while harnessing its greatest strengths in entrepreneurship and adaptability.
Now, the main question is flipped from whether Southeast Asia can digitise agriculture to whether it can do so inclusively, ensuring that technology works for the millions who feed it.