The Story of Sabanto: Building the Future of Agricultural Autonomy

Some of the most interesting startup stories begin with founders who bridge seemingly disconnected worlds. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Craig Rupp shared how his unusual background as “one part farm boy, one part engineer, and one part entrepreneur” led to the creation of Sabanto, a company reimagining agricultural autonomy.

From Farm to Engineering and Back

Growing up on a farm in northwest Iowa, Craig had no plans to become an entrepreneur. “I had no desire to be an entrepreneur. I never thought I would be an entrepreneur,” he recalls. “When I went to work at Motorola, I mean, this was back in 1989, I thought I was going to work there the rest of my life.”

But his path took an unexpected turn when he and two colleagues left to start their first company. This began a series of entrepreneurial ventures, including a data company in Texas, a signal processing firm, and eventually 640 Labs, which was acquired by Monsanto in 2014.

The Genesis of Sabanto

The idea for Sabanto emerged after Craig left Climate Corporation in 2018. Rather than immediately jumping into building a company, he took time to think deeply about the intersection of autonomy and agriculture. “I started looking at the talents that are required to implement autonomy and agriculture. Obviously, you need communications, you need control, you need hardware development, you need front end, back end development,” he explains.

Instead of following the typical startup playbook of raising money first, Craig took a hands-on approach. He leased a tractor, bought a planter, got his commercial driver’s license, and spent months traveling from state to state, working directly with farmers to understand the real challenges of autonomous farming.

Building the Core Team

After closing a seed round in 2019, Craig returned to Chicago with a clear vision and assembled a team of trusted engineers he knew could execute on it. “I went back to Chicago and hired five of the best engineers I knew that could help me pull this off,” he recalls.

Over the next two years, the team focused on becoming a “full stack provider,” developing capabilities across various field operations. “Throughout 2019 and 2020, what we did was we’re trying to become a full stack provider, meaning that we are capable of doing practically every field operation that is required in row crop agriculture,” Craig explains.

The Path to Productization

By 2022, after extensive development and testing, Sabanto was ready to transform their technology into a scalable product. “The majority of 2022, were spent productizing it, giving it the ability to hand it off or let other people deploy Autonomy into their operations,” Craig notes.

This led to the development of their current system – an autonomous kit that can be installed on existing tractors in about four hours, making the technology accessible to a broader range of farmers.

Looking to the Future

Sabanto’s vision extends beyond just providing autonomous technology. They’re building toward an open platform that could transform agricultural innovation. “We’re going to be supporting farmers and our dealers across the US. And we’re going to have hundreds of systems out there. They’re going to be on multiple tractor models, makes and models, and we’re going to be a platform there by which others can develop upon,” Craig explains.

This platform approach directly addresses what Craig sees as a fundamental problem in agriculture: “I think one of the problems in agriculture today is it’s very proprietary, it’s very closed… There’s a lot of implement companies out there that are really innovative, and what’s stopping them from instrumenting or creating technology on their implements is just the proprietary nature of agriculture today.”

For Sabanto, success isn’t just about selling autonomous systems – it’s about creating an ecosystem that enables broader innovation in agriculture. In an industry facing significant demographic challenges, with one-third of farmers over 65, this open approach could prove crucial for the future of farming.