Start-Up Success Story: How Poket’s Smart Data Platform Turned Heads

The Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit is the launchpad for early- to mid-stage innovators looking to transform global food systems. With a curated audience of investors, multinational agribusinesses, corporates, and forward-thinking decision-makers, the summit provides an unmatched platform for start-ups to showcase emerging technologies, strike key partnerships, and gain traction in new markets.

This year, one such standout was Poket, a digital platform originally rooted in North America, now making bold inroads into Southeast Asia’s dynamic agri-food sector. They have a simple but powerful mission: to democratise data collection in last-mile communities. Poket caught the attention of stakeholders across the spectrum, from grassroots NGOs to multinational food producers. Read on to find out what they’re up to now and how the summit impacted their opportunities for scale.

Poket’s core innovation lies in enabling offline, mobile-first data collection in hard-to-reach or digitally underserved communities. Built with flexibility in mind, the platform allows organisations to deploy surveys, collect multimedia data, and even incentivise participation using mobile rewards, all without requiring internet connectivity.

Designed for sectors like agriculture, public health, and economic development, Poket empowers frontline workers, farmers, citizens, and researchers to become data collectors themselves. The result? More timely, hyper-local insights that drive smarter decisions.

With clients across the US and Canada, Poket had proven itself in the North American market. But the team saw a growing need and opportunity across the Asia-Pacific region.

We asked Poket about their participation at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit and what their experience was attending as a featured start-up. Their response:

“The majority of Poket’s work and client-base has been in North America, primarily the US. We have always been interested in the SEA market, and thought that the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit would be a great opportunity to get introduced to the brands, opportunities and challenges facing the sector across the region. This was indeed the case, with lots of interest in our platform generated by agrifood businesses, researchers and NGOs alike!”

The feedback Poket received at the summit inspired a major product update. Co-Founder Kamil Shafiq said:
“As we connected with potential partners and clients at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, we realised there was a deep need across these organisations for a user-friendly field data collection solution that could work offline and in last-mile communities. We had these features already built into our platform – but what we did not have was an interface for agri-food companies to manage these data collection projects on their own. This helped inform the build of our self-serve portal, which allows agrifood companies to build surveys and questionnaires, manage data and reward users in the field for their insights.”

Looking Ahead: Citizen-Led Data and Decentralised Supply Chains

Poket’s founders were energised by what lies ahead. For them, the most exciting frontier is locally-led, real-time insights. Kamil underlines:

“For us at Poket, the most exciting opportunity is the generation of locally-led insights in last-mile communities. With smartphone access, ICT services and digital literacy increasing rapidly, we can finally leverage the eyes and ears of farmers, citizens, community members and other actors across agrifood supply chains to generate real-time data and insights on the ground. Now, farmers can share pictures of their climate-smart practices on the farm, citizens can crowdsource the price of food/products in a local market, or suppliers can share any challenges or roadblocks along their routes – ideally with Poket!”

This grassroots approach is especially promising in Southeast Asia, where diverse food systems, rapidly digitising rural communities, and complex supply chains all demand scalable, inclusive tech solutions.

When asked about some candid advice for fellow start-ups navigating funding, Poket highlighted a strategy that served them well:

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – when it comes to customer base and geography, diversify and be open to new markets, especially if you’re a SaaS.”

Ready to Be the Next Breakout Success?

Whether you’re building AI-powered agronomy tools, climate-resilient crop tech, or game-changing supply chain software, the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit offers unparalleled exposure and connections.

Applications are now open for featured start-ups and scale-ups. Don’t miss your chance to get in front of the people who can help take your innovation to the next level.

Apply now to be a featured innovator at the next summit and let your story unfold where it matters the most. See more information at www.agrifoodinnovation.com/start-ups