MyAnIML earns NSF funding, patent; now facing new phase of growth with industry validation

Thanks to a recent federal grant — along with a newly secured patent on its first-of-its-kind, proprietary facial recognition tech for cows — MyAnIML is proving its place as a leader within a herd of ag innovation, Shekhar Gupta said.

The Overland Park startup received a 250,000 Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which only funds high-tech proposals, detailed Gupta, founder and CEO of the agtech company and one of Startland News’ Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2022.

“It will help us money wise,” he continued, “but also getting that validation helps. Earlier this year, USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) had published a paper about our company, as well as about our technology. So we had that validation from USDA that our technology is working. Now we got that grant funding from NSF; it’s more proof that we’re a dominant player in this industry.”

MyAnIML’s patented technology uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict a broad range of total health indicators. It’s the industry’s first facial — specifically a cow’s muzzle — recognition library dataset, designed and built by the MyAnIML team. The technology accurately predicted Infectious Bovine Keratoconjunctivitis (IBK), or bovine pinkeye, 99.4 percent of the time and several days before veterinarians were able to detect symptoms, according to the USDA published study results.

“Nobody had even thought that you could look at a cow’s face and nose-print muzzle and be able to predict a disease,” Gupta added.

RELATED: Study with USDA researchers affirms startup’s AI-powered facial recognition for cows can detect sick animals

Receiving the patent for the technology also strengthens MyAnIML’s portfolio for investors and brings confidence among the customer base, he noted.

“Now they know that this company is not a fluke because it’s got a patent behind it,” he explained. “And nobody can steal the technology either.”

Gupta plans to use part of the Phase 1 grant money to enhance MyAnIML’s app — which began development in late 2023 and is expected to launch this month at a partner ranch and early next month at a partner dairy.

“We’ve developed an app that takes a picture of a cow’s face/muzzle — and almost instantaneously — it provides a notification on the screen of any health symptoms of that cow within two or three seconds,” Gupta explained.

The startup also aims to use the grant money to build a video unit, he shared, noting it will take videos and analyze each cow from the video to send automatic health notifications.

MyAnIML has come a long way since the beginning, Gupta noted, when the platform used GoPros on feeder trucks to take photos and then uploaded that data to a server for it to be analyzed on Google Cloud.

“It’s very exciting to see the growth that we’ve encountered,” he reflected with pride. “From my own research that a face can show a symptom, to actually proving it, to getting a patent on it, getting our first customer to use it, and now developing an app that actually does work really fast.”