Innovation Saskatchewan puts $300K into AgTech Accelerator through 2028

Innovation Saskatchewan is putting $300,000 into the AgTech Accelerator over three years, the province’s innovation agency said — $100,000 a year from 2026 through 2028 to fund three more cohorts of agriculture-tech startups.

Cultivator powered by Conexus runs the program. Innovation Saskatchewan has been a founding partner and annual funder since 2022. The renewal was flagged at Cultivator’s Startup Summit in Regina. Minister Warren Kaeding cast it as locking in Saskatchewan’s pitch as Canada’s agtech hub; CEO Kari Harvey said the accelerator moves ideas from concept to market and pulls investment and talent into the province.

Each cohort also brings in at least five UK agtech firms through a link with Innovate UK’s Global Incubator Programme. Since that partnership began in 2022, 25 UK companies have worked the Saskatchewan circuit. Program alumni cited by the province include Ground Truth Agriculture (more than $7 million in venture capital), Super GeoAI and AgScouter, plus B.C.’s Lucent BioSciences, which built manufacturing and R&D in the province.

For a Prairies ag economy squeezed by trade risk and input costs, a small public cheque is meant to keep the commercialization pipe open — mentorship, farm connections and capital access so more value sticks in Saskatchewan instead of leaving as raw commodities or imported kit.