🐓 Computer Vision for ... Chicken Farming!
Our conversation with the CEO of FLOX and Co-Founder of Post Urban Ventures – Imtiaz Shams
💡Company Info
CEO: Imtiaz Shams (Co-Founder & Director at Post Urban Ventures)
CTO: Nils Hügelmann (ex-Robotics Engineer at Moley Robotics)
Funding: Seed
Founded in: 2018
FLOX utilizes computers to improve animal welfare for modern farming. It monitors the condition of chickens in the sheds, providing feedback and compliance solutions for farmers and integrators.
Listen to the full conversation on Spotify or Apple Podcast:
🤔 From Niche to Necessity: Chicken Welfare
At its core, FLOX is driven by a commitment to animal welfare. Animal welfare is, of course, related to the humane treatment of animals, which is important in its own right from an ethical perspective. It is also critical for regulatory compliance reasons, as governments around the world have strict regulations in place, such as the Animal Welfare Act in the US or Council Directive 98/58/EC in the EU.
Beyond the ESG perspective, It also concerns:
Human health — Humane treatment of animals reduces the transmission of diseases
Increased value of animal products — The product would be of higher value, justifying better practices from an economic perspective
Chicken farming, as Imtiaz points out, is far from being a niche market, and the TAM would be huge as a large portion of the world’s population eats chicken. In fact, poultry has become the most popular meat source. With over 74 billion chickens consumed in 2021 and projections indicating an increase to 85 billion by 2032, the demand for poultry is only expected to grow (data available from OECD-FAO).
🚀 Bridging Tradition and Technology
Despite robotic advances in factories, farm operations remain surprisingly traditional. FLOX aims to change this narrative by using deep-tech solutions like computer vision to monitor chickens and make farming precise, compliant, and predictable. As Imtiaz noted:
The future of every industry, including agriculture, lies in innovation and advanced technology.
FLOX targets underexplored areas, such as chicken farming — “a niche quarter of a trillion dollar market” — to unlock unique growth opportunities.
Deep-tech solutions for agriculture increase the sustainability and efficiency of chicken farming, scaling both environmental and economic benefits.
I always like problems that people are afraid to touch or they don't want to think about… People don't really think about chickens!
🏭 Go to Market Strategy — Not Exactly B2C as We Imagined
Wow, that's a huge market. But you'd think it would be hard to tap into individual farmers. It turns out that the market is more homogeneous, consisting mainly of a few large "integrators" in each country who collect the chickens from the farmers.
FLOX works with the integrators to bring the technology to the farmers, so the farmers can exert more power over the quality control, while the integrators can have more transparency in the supply chain.
Furthermore, because FLOX collaborates with integrators on the product, it’s able to design products that fit the customers, reducing the uncertainty in Product-Market Fit.
Some advice that Imtiaz gave us about operating in the agriculture sector:
The first thing someone needs to do when they enter this industry is forget everything they know, because you probably don't know anything.
…
In some sectors, there's a bit of a tit-for-tat. You tell me something else. Not in agriculture. People love to help.
They're very excited if you're willing to listen. And I've been very lucky that I've got so many mentors who've helped me in agriculture.
🧰 Adapting Technology for Scalability
Computer vision is at the heart of FLOX’s business. The company started with multiple simple cameras in each chicken shed, trying to reduce the costs and hit the market quickly.
In the beginning, they focused on the following:
Simple, robust hardware (harsh environment common for IoT)
Quick off-the-shelf deployment
Then they ran into the problem of deploying the stack at scale. Imtiaz decided to pivot into using more advanced cameras. The pros and cons:
Fewer cameras, quicker installation
More complex model
Forgoing data backward compatibility
👩💻 Joining the Mission
Imtiaz shared his vision for the future of agriculture:
Animal welfare is going global, and so is deep tech. FLOX is currently expanding its markets in Latin America, where two of its strategic partners are from.
Beyond chicken, the next welfare-driven future of meat production appears to be cage-free eggs and turkeys — “a larger version of chickens.”
FLOX is about to close a round and is looking to hire engineers to work in autonomy, bringing cutting-edge technology into agriculture. If you’re interested or know someone who might be a good fit, email Imtiaz at