Salinas-based drone company wows tech summit visitors

Agriculture technology was the word of the day Thursday during an annual summit in Gonzales, and no better way to demonstrate the newest gizmo than to take it to the air.

"I've been talking all day," said Cliff Hogan, co-founder of a new agricultural drone called Eagle Eye, about the steady stream of visitors to his table at the Salinas Valley Ag Technology Summit held at Converted Organics in Gonzales.

Though drones used in agriculture are nothing new, the Eagle Eye is distinctive because of its mobility, size, accuracy and, most important, its price point. At $4,500, the 2.8-pound "heli-drone" puts a labor-saving device in reach of even the smallest grower in the Salinas Valley.

"The other benefit is me," said Hogan, who earned a doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin in plant pathology and now lives in Salinas. "I'm a local guy offering local support. All you have to do is give me a call."

The drone — about 150 have been sold — is a scout. Instead of having field workers spend an hour per acre walking the rows looking for anything out of the ordinary, the Eagle Eye can scout about 8 acres in 10 minutes and deliver information humans cannot, at least not without wings.

It can get closer and higher than a human, hovering inches over a plant or providing a bird's eye view from a practically unlimited altitude. Interestingly, when Hogan demonstrated the drone later in the day, it shared airspace with a pair of golden eagles doing their own scouting for lunchtime critters above the cropland in Gonzales.

The benefit of altitude is an onboard camera that can record subtle changes in color and patterns in crops — seen only from the air — which could signal the beginnings of crop distress. The drone also contains a digital video recorder than can transmit up to 1.5 miles. The farmer can hold the control and watch realtime video of his crop. Or he can go eat breakfast while the drone scours a preprogrammed grid, come back and set itself down. After breakfast the grower can remove a memory card, plug it into his computer and watch the video.

Hogan said he has a strong background in specialty crops, which was one of the reasons he migrated to the Salinas Valley. Before co-launching Eagle Eye with a buddy in Wisconsin, Hogan worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research Station in Salinas.

"Plus, it's beautiful here," he said. "I hope to spend the rest of my life here."

Hogan will compete in CSU Monterey Bay's Startup Challenge this year, a chance to put technologies in front of investors and business advisers. But Hogan's business plan isn't looking for venture capital and for viable reasons.

"I'm not looking for VC," he said. "I'm not looking to grow fast and then bail."

Establishment venture capital models often take large pieces of the company by way of shares of private equity in exchange for the capital to launch the enterprise. It's not unheard of for a VC firm to take 30 percent ownership in exchange for a first allotment of startup capital. Often the founder will be moved into a chief technology officer role and the lead VC will pull in a business school graduate to run the company.

The old VC model would strive to take the company public in an initial public offering, or IPO, but VCs want their returns quicker these days and most often opt to shop the startup company around until it is acquired by a bigger fish. Large technology companies frequently buy startups for their technology rather than spend the research-and-development bucks in-house.

With his partner having a business school background and armed with his own Ph. D., Hogan said he is comfortable to scale his company at his own pace.

Dennis L. Taylor covers technology for TheCalifornian.com. Follow him on Twitter @taylor_salnews.