Hortau, a provider of precision irrigation management systems and services for agriculture since 2002, continues its rapid growth heading into 2017—when the company will celebrate its 15-year anniversary.
Hortau enjoyed another year of expansion in 2016, growing sales during the fiscal year by about 50 percent for the fifth consecutive year. Hortau also successfully expanded into the Pacific Northwest while growing its presence in the High Plains with coverage in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. Founded in Québec in 2002, Hortau now has systems from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, as well as sensors in the ground in Turkey, Morocco, Peru and Egypt.
As far as its team, Hortau has grown its staff by 60 percent over the past year, helping to ensure the company provides the most reliable service and irrigation management platform on the market. That growth includes eight new internal R&D positions, helping expand software and firmware development, user experience, data science, soil physics and project management.
“Our R&D team is tremendously enhanced to deliver the services we’ll need to support our customers,” said Hortau CEO and co-founder Jocelyn Boudreau.
Hortau has also signed a number of partnership agreements over the past year to help evolve its platform with cutting-edge technology that will continue to help commercial farming operations grow more with fewer resources.
Along with its smart irrigation management system, Hortau is also working with other agriculture manufacturers to make their equipment in the field smarter, connecting their components to the cloud so growers can access data in real time via mobile devices or computers.
Hortau will showcase some of those partnerships and the latest generation of its irrigation management platform at a number of shows this year, including the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., on Feb. 14-16.
“We’re excited about what 2017 will bring,” Boudreau added. “We’ve been at this for nearly 15 years now, and our goal is to remain at the forefront of the industry and make sure our software, hardware and service is the best on the market. That means continuing to push the envelope with our technology, allowing our customers to grow smarter and improve crop production with our Internet of Things platform and the most accurate sensor data in the field today.”
Along with the other recent milestones, Hortau moved into a new U.S. headquarters in San Luis Obispo, Calif., late last year and will hold a grand opening of the office in May to commemorate its 15-year anniversary.