Innov8.ag, an agtech company enabling actionable data solutions for farms and agribusinesses, announced today the cash and stock acquisition of 2nd Sight Bioscience, an agricultural labor tracking and inventory systems provider.

Integrating 2nd Sight’s all-in-one labor, yield tracking and produce traceability capabilities with innov8.ag’s already established ecosystem of agronomic and yield management technologies will help specialty crop growers and food companies plan smarter, act faster and optimize their decision-making process with end-to-end data integration.

With growers and food companies facing rapidly mounting pressure from labor shortages, climate change impacts, food safety and traceability demands, and trade and tariff disruptions, integrating and unlocking data capabilities is essential to maintaining operational profitability, said Steve Mantle, Innov8.ag founder and CEO. Across the U.S., farm bankruptcies started ticking upwards in 2024, surging by 70% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, with more closures looming.

“Bringing 2nd Sight under the innov8.ag umbrella gives growers and agribusiness CFOs a powerful response to what’s keeping them up at night when it comes to staying profitable,” Mantle said. “It’s about bringing together the right people, equipment and processes that turn data into clarity — in the field, in the packhouse and on the grocery shelf — at a time when agriculture simply can’t wait any longer for big ideas to turn into actionable solutions.”

2nd Sight Acquisition Expands Labor Efficiencies Across the Innov8.ag Ecosystem

With the 2nd Sight acquisition, Innov8.ag levels up their ability to integrate and layer data across day-to-day agricultural tasks in ways that help growers better manage their labor efficiency. Innov8.ag’s technology ecosystem already includes data-enabled solutions for soil management, production practices and yield forecasting.

Labor shortages and costs are a particularly keen pain point facing growers today, especially for specialty crop producers growing highly labor-intensive crops such as berries, fruits, tree nuts and vegetables. Specialty crop growers in California, who supply one-third of U.S. vegetables and three-quarters of its fruit and nuts, have seen their labor costs grow by a factor of eight over the last 12 years, according to Walt Duflock, VP of Innovation at Western Growers and a specialty crop grower himself.

With labor a common concern amongst domestic and international growers, harnessing AI to unlock new data insights from 2nd Sight’s labor-focused software and hardware solutions are critical to growers’ profitability.

“At 2nd Sight, we’ve always wanted to not just save growers money, but make them money. Combining our expertise in labor and inventory tracking with the work Innov8.ag has already put in to make data actionable for growers at the agronomic, yield and production practices level unveils a whole new level of insights that can quickly be turned into daily gains,” said Kevin Oldenburg, 2nd Sight founder and CEO.

2nd Sight’s well-known FairPick and FairTrak systems automate harvest tracking by weight, by hour and by piece rates, using employee-assigned RFID cards and a rugged, tamper-proof, legal-for-trade harvest scale system to capture weighed crops, such as blueberries, or scan per-unit or per-task data, such as a bushel of tomatoes or a row of apple trees pruned. Both systems generate receipts for farm laborers for accountability and automatically upload records at the end of the day for real-time daily harvest and task management.

FairPick and FairTrak systems are currently deployed across hundreds of fruit and vegetable farms in the U.S. and internationally, with seamless support in multiple languages and both imperial and metric measurements.

The 2nd Sight technology platform also includes automated inventory management systems for counting and tracking nursery stock, tissue cultures and produce, using RFIDs, barcodes and a handheld scanning device to count and track inventory, from the lab, the nursery floor, harvest and to the grocer.

With the acquisition deal, Innov8.ag acquires all of 2nd Sight’s assets, including their intellectual property, inventory and customer base, and will retain their experienced staff, combining 2nd Sight’s and Innov8.ag’s daily operations. Oldenburg will step down from his day-to-day role but take over as Innov8.ag’s board chair.

About Innov8.ag

Innov8.ag is transforming the future of data-informed farming and food production by delivering actionable solutions across the agricultural value chain, from the field to the grocery shelf. Founded in 2019, Innov8.ag aggregates best-in-class technologies — including labor management, soil mapping, crop imaging, ag robotics, yield and harvest analytics, and inventory tracking with traceability — under one innovation ecosystem, giving breeders, growers and agribusinesses seamless access to industry-proven technologies while unlocking amplified insights across critical day-to-day operations. To learn more - www.innov8.ag

TCTrak: Simple, Easy, & Affordable Tissue Culture Tracking

Several years ago, a commercial plant nursery approached us with an intriguing challenge: develop an application to track their tissue culture process from the cutting stage through production and sales. The nursery, which propagated a sizable number of plants, struggled to manage the various stages of tissue culture and inventory effectively. Since they were already using our InstaCaliper tool for nursery inventory, they believed we could create a solution that was both user-friendly and affordable.

We eagerly took on the challenge, recognizing its alignment with the traceability systems our growers had requested for tracking produce from the field to the consumer. The initial tissue culture software was too focused on a specific grower’s needs and had limited success—some growers adopted it, but we knew there was room for improvement via expanded capabilities. So, we went back to the drawing board, focused on real-world usability, and reimagined the system from the ground up.

The result? TCTrak—a robust, location-based, and highly flexible application that tracks tissue culture samples from generation through the growing, feeding, expanding, and hardening stages and all the way through their journey to the greenhouse and finally out the door to the customers.

With TCTrak, you can:

• Easily configure locations (e.g., shipping/receiving, laboratory, hoods, refrigerators);
• Manage contacts (vendors and customers);
• Organize tasks (e.g., propagation, feeding, hardening);
• Tag tasks with the specific information you need.

This dynamic system provides detailed inventory insights, tracks generational changes in tissue culture samples, generates receipts, and simplifies order shipping.

Best of all, it is significantly more affordable than traditional LIMS (Laboratory Information Management Systems).

StockTrak: Ensuring Food Safety Traceability

Similarly, a cherry grower approached us with a need to track produce from the field to customers. The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations required growers to maintain records of where produce originated and its distribution end points, enabling rapid recalls when necessary.

From this need, StockTrak was born—a system built on the same foundation as TCTrak. StockTrak empowers growers to tag produce with barcodes and monitor it throughout farm processes, meeting Canada’s strict regulatory requirements.

In the U.S., similar regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) were scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2025. While future executive changes could alter these mandates, traceability remains a gold standard for food safety. It helps producers quickly identify contamination points and protect consumer health.

Staying Current with System Updates

You might wonder how we keep TCTrak, StockTrak, and our portal up to date. The answer is simple: we listen to you.

Many updates are inspired by user feedback. Whether it is a request for a specialized report or a feature to streamline payroll and operations, we are committed to making your work easier. Our customers’ needs drive our innovation, ensuring our systems evolve to meet real-world challenges.

Closing Thoughts

Whether you are propagating plants or managing food safety traceability, TCTrak and StockTrak simplify complex processes while saving time and money. We are proud to support our customers with flexible, practical solutions that grow alongside their businesses.