"Smart Farm for Mass Production of Edible Insects, Challenging Overseas Markets"

AI Startup Cradle Global Startup Academy <1> Lee Bonghak, CEO of Bandalsoft

Lee Bong-hak, CEO of Bandalsoft, is manufacturing a smart farm device for an automatic edible insect breeding system.

"In the post-COVID era, we aim to create contactless agriculture." There was confidence in the voice of Lee Bong-hak, CEO of BandalSoft. It is the ambition of the startup to lead market innovation with a 'smart farm' that applies the latest IT technology to agriculture. Their main focus is the still unfamiliar 'insect smart farm.' They plan to pioneer a new market with a product that automatically controls and remotely manages the breeding environment of edible insects, which are emerging as future food sources.

On the 23rd, CEO Lee stated in an interview with Asia Economy, "We will create software that sets the standard for insect breeding so that high-quality insects can be mass-produced anywhere." Although edible insects are not yet familiar to us, they are gaining attention as future food in many countries worldwide, including Europe and the United States. Because they can be raised in small spaces, they have attracted interest as a new source of income for farms, and recently, the number of breeding farms has been increasing domestically as well.

CEO Lee was inspired by his father, who was receiving training in edible insect breeding after Lee founded BandalSoft in 2017 while studying computer engineering and developing disaster prevention systems. He developed the business idea of an insect smart farm. He explained, "When I visited insect farms, I saw that productivity was low compared to the sweat shed. To solve this problem through IT technology, I created a smart farm device tailored for insects."

What caught CEO Lee’s attention was that in traditional manual breeding, 24-hour management is difficult, and group deaths can occur due to problems maintaining constant temperature and humidity. He precisely controlled temperature and humidity to maintain an optimized environment for insects and designed the breeding space vertically so that insects could be managed in a customized way by size or species on each floor. By introducing BandalSoft’s technology to farms, working hours can be reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours, and the number of management personnel can be cut from 2 to 1.

In this process, BandalSoft received support from the Small and Medium Business Corporation’s startup support program. After going through the Youth Startup Academy in 2018, this year they have been enhancing data collection technology and continuously expanding their business model through the Global Startup Academy. CEO Lee said, "At the Global Startup Academy, I received great help in improving the commercialization technology of our product through systematic, practical, project-based AI specialized education provided by the Small and Medium Business Corporation’s top domestic instructors, as well as global AI weeks hosted by Intel, NVIDIA, AWS, and Microsoft." He added, "Through funding support necessary for commercialization, we were able to introduce AI into insect breeding devices."

BandalSoft upgraded its software by reflecting the know-how gained from directly building and operating an insect farm in Daejeon, and developed sales channels and distribution networks by selling insects directly. Based on this, they are preparing to enter overseas markets. This also received support from the Global Startup Academy. CEO Lee said, "We were matched with excellent overseas accelerators and received coaching on areas where help was needed for overseas market entry." He added, "We plan to establish a farm locally in Southeast Asia to produce large quantities of insects at low cost. We will secure partners who can collaborate on insect breeding-related businesses and software locally, install products next year, and continue efforts to enter the market."

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, overseas market development was temporarily halted, so BandalSoft focused this year on securing domestic partners and refining products by listening to farmers’ voices. CEO Lee emphasized, "This year, we concentrated on creating services necessary for insect breeding, and next year, we aim to sell devices to about 10 insect farms nationwide." He added, "Next year, we will also accelerate overseas market entry and operate products at overseas farms."