USA – The Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) has announced seven startup companies participating in its accelerator programme, 2019 DFA Accelerator.

The organisation has also launched the Sprint Accelerator program running through June with an aim to provide smaller companies in the agricultural technology and food space with a platform that fosters growth.

The startup companies participating in this year’s round will engage in a 90-day immersive program under the Sprint initiative.

Startups in two verticals, that is ag tech and dairy food products will work directly with leaders from DFA, CoBank, Sprint and other industry experts and mentors to create strategic, long-term partnerships.

The ag tech and dairy food product companies selected will receive mentorship, connections and resources to help accelerate their growth.

“It has been rewarding to help mentor these entrepreneurs, and we’re thrilled to get started with another class for this year’s DFA Accelerator.

Plus, we’ve found that we learn along the way too,” said Monica Massey, executive vice president and chief of staff at DFA.

“By working and collaborating with ag tech and dairy food startup companies, we’re helping develop solutions that will not only provide value for our farm families and their operations but will also help drive consumer demand for dairy.”

They will also get access to state-of-the-art workspace facilities provided at Sprint Accelerator in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District, plus business building sessions around product, brand, marketing and entrepreneurship.

The 2019 DFA Accelerator class in the ag tech space include Bezoar Laboratories, Cattle Care, Healthy Cow, and Boston based artificial intelligence-powered smartphone platform, Labby.

Those participating in the program under the dairy food products category are Brooklyn Buttery, Numa and RifRaf.

DFA’s last year accelerator programme’s finalists included Pharm Robotics, Ripe Technologies, SomaDetect, Cheddies, MoPro Nutrition and Too Cool Chix.

In July, DFA said it had invested Mopro Nutrition, the manufacturer of a whole milk Greek yoghurt infused with CFM whey protein isolate.