Good to the Last Drop: Ag-Tech Startup Nave Analytics Helps Farmers Manage Irrigation
Using and conserving water have always been competing challenges of farming.
Those factors drove Chief Executive Officer Jessi Korinek and her partners to establish Nave Analytics, a Nebraska-based ag-tech firm specializing in irrigation analytics.
In focusing on lower-margin, broad-acre row crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat, one of Nave Analytic’s most significant innovations is using satellite data to replace sensors placed throughout fields.
“Sensors are expensive, and you have to have somebody physically go out and install them,” Korinek said. Sensors can also lose connectivity.
Nave provides customers with an analysis through a patented process that combines satellite information with crop and hydrology modeling along with soil and weather data.
Nave Analytics Chief Executive Officer Jessi Korinek
“What we're really trying to help is making sure that we're applying water only when the crop needs it,” Korinek said. “It’s a really tight balancing act.”
Nave has built upon its base technology to provide information on field conditions to help farmers make planting decisions.
The drawing down of underground aquifers and uncertainties of climate change are making watering decisions as important as ever.
“At the end of the day,” Korinek said, “we need to do a better job of managing our water resources.”
Nave’s global outlook helps insulate it from the normal volatility of the agriculture sector and other shocks, such as the tit-for-tat tariffs underway between the U.S. and its trading partners.
The company monitored 40,000 acres in seven countries last year. The team hopes to grow its footprint in places like Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and Canada.
The founders established Nave in 2021 while they were still working other jobs. Korinek and the chief technology officer went full-time two years ago, and they brought on their third partner in 2024.
Nave is a venture-backed company, but the seasonality of its business makes for uneven cash flow. Conventional lenders blanched at assisting a startup with such variable revenue.
“We were struggling to find someone who would understand that we could not be evaluated like a regular small business,” Korinek said. “This was not a nice process for us.”
That’s why it was a relief when another founder introduced Korinek to AltCap, which met with the Nave team to better understand the business and its needs.
The right solution for Nave turned out to be a $150,000 revenue-based loan from AltCap.
Revenue-based financing gives small businesses access to capital in exchange for a fixed percentage of their monthly revenue. Instead of paying a set amount each month, payments adjust based on how much the business earns—so slower months mean smaller payments.
Unlike other funding models — like venture capital or angel investment — founders can tap revenue-based financing capital without giving up equity in their company. It’s also a great fit for startups that might not yet qualify for traditional loans but have strong revenue potential.
In Nave’s case, revenue-based financing helps fill gaps when big invoices land during low-revenue periods. Nave closed on the loan in January 2025, and Korinek said it was working out well.
“We’re not quite to our busy point in the season yet,” she said, “so our first payment or two have been quite small, and that has been handy.”
Founded in 2021, Nave has already scored big wins and headlines.
In 2024, the company won NASA’s 2024 Galactic Impact Award, beating out more than 10,000 global teams in the competition. The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an annual competition in which participants use NASA satellite data to create tools addressing real-world problems.
Just months after the NASA win, Nave secured a $400,000 funding round backed by Invest Nebraska and other investors to support their expansion into global markets.