Anihan Technologies: Smarter Farming For A Better Future

Anihan Technologies (AniTech) is an agritech startup focused on reducing food loss and improving farm productivity through data-driven solutions. They provide smart IoT sensors and real-time analytics to help farmers and agribusinesses monitor crop conditions, optimize resources, and make informed decisions. By bridging traditional farming with technology, AniTech aims to create a more efficient and sustainable agricultural ecosystem in the Philippines and beyond. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about AniTech with its CEO and Co-Founder, Gillilan Santos. 

What inspired the founding of AniTech, and what problem are you solving in the agriculture industry?

Back in 2021, while working as a consultant for the National Food Authority, I became deeply concerned with the massive food losses happening in the agriculture sector. Despite being an agricultural nation, the Philippines loses 10% to 40% of crops before they even reach supermarkets or households. This issue led me to bring in my co-founders, Daniel and Anthony, to explore solutions. We realized that a major problem across farming, logistics, and wholesale was the lack of real-time agricultural data, which hindered stakeholders from making informed decisions.

AniTech was founded to bridge this data gap. By collecting and quantifying agricultural data, we empower farmers and supply chain players to optimize crop cycles, improve post-harvest handling, and reduce food loss. Our goal is to transform decision-making in agriculture, making the industry more efficient and sustainable.

Can you explain how your sensor and data solutions work to optimize agribusiness operations?

AniTech operates under the belief that bridging traditional farming with data-driven insights is key to reducing agricultural losses and improving productivity in the Philippines. Our technology provides affordable smart sensors, actionable data, and expert support to help agribusinesses monitor and manage crop quality effortlessly. Our battery-powered, weather-resistant IoT sensors collect real-time data on microclimate, soil conditions, and spoilage, ensuring reliable data transmission even in remote areas. All this information is accessible through our CropNote web app, where users receive real-time updates and periodic reports to make informed decisions.

Beyond technology, we provide on-site installation, consultations, and support, making it easy for clients to integrate our system into their operations. For farmers, remote monitoring means saving time on manual field checks while ensuring best practices are followed. Post-harvest managers can track respiration rates and detect spoilage early without being physically present. By enabling precision agriculture and remote monitoring across multiple stages, AniTech helps agribusinesses reduce waste, increase efficiency, and maximize profitability.

How does AniTech differentiate itself from other agri-tech solutions in the Philippines and globally?

While there are many agri-tech solutions globally, AniTech stands out by addressing key gaps in the Philippine market. Many local providers only sell sensors, leaving farmers to interpret complex data themselves, which requires extra time, skills, and resources. On the other hand, international companies bundle hardware and software, but their high costs and slow technical support make them impractical for Filipino agribusinesses. Additionally, most competitors focus on only one part of the value chain—either pre-harvest or post-harvest—leaving critical gaps unaddressed.

At AniTech, we go beyond just providing state-of-the-art sensors; we deliver actionable insights and tailored recommendations that help farmers make informed decisions. Our end-to-end approach ensures that agribusinesses improve yields, reduce costs, and optimize resources across the entire value chain. 

What has been the biggest challenge in getting farmers and agribusinesses to adopt AniTech’s technology?

In the beginning, our biggest challenge was that AniTech had no established reputation in the agriculture sector. Even though I had prior experience as a consultant, AniTech was starting from zero, and it was difficult to find early adopters willing to listen to us, let alone use our solution. We launched in the middle of the pandemic, which made it even harder to build connections. To overcome this, we joined startup competitions, agricultural summits, and networking events to better understand the industry and find the right partners. Eventually, we secured our first early adopter, Harvest Agribusiness Corporation, one of the largest greenhouse builders in the country. They saw the value in our technology and allowed us to do a pilot, which later evolved into a long-term partnership.

Another ongoing challenge is cost and pricing. While our technology is more affordable than international alternatives, we still need to balance pricing with farmers' ability and willingness to pay. Agritech solutions can be seen as expensive upfront investments, so we are actively iterating on our business model to find the right pricing structure that works for the Philippine market. The key to scaling AniTech is cracking that sweet spot—a pricing plan that is both sustainable for us and accessible to agribusinesses.

Can you share any success stories or case studies where AniTech has significantly improved farm yield or reduced food losses?

Over the past two years, our focus at AniTech has been on deeply understanding the fruit and vegetable industry in the Philippines and working closely with our early adopters. Our initial goal was to create a stable sensor system that could remotely monitor crops for extended periods, and we achieved that last year. We started with just one IoT sensor designed for greenhouses, which we combined with a web-based platform. However, we quickly realized that a single sensor wasn’t enough to fully address the challenges in agriculture. By late 2024, we expanded our sensor line to monitor soil, weather, storage conditions, and in-transit produce, covering multiple stages of the supply chain. This year, our focus is on measuring tangible impact.

What I’m most proud of is our ability to iterate efficiently without burning too much money, which is especially challenging for a hardware startup with limited infrastructure and resources. Now, we’ve successfully developed five different sensors, and our early adopters are not only using them but are also willing to distribute our solutions. This progress puts us in a strong position to scale AniTech’s impact in the coming years.

What is the long-term vision for AniTech, and how do you see it evolving in the next five years?

Our long-term vision for AniTech is to build a comprehensive ecosystem that provides accurate data collection and decision-support systems for different crops, stages, and markets—not just in the Philippines but across ASEAN. This year, we’re already expanding internationally by conducting joint research trials in Japan at Ibaraki Prefecture through Koibuchi Gakuen College. These trials are just the beginning, as we aim to explore more international pilots to refine and scale our technology. Over the next few years, we’ll focus on enhancing our analytics, providing more advisories, and making our sensors even more affordable so agribusinesses of all sizes can adopt them easily.

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Gillian Santos is the CEO and Co-Founder of Anihan Technologies. She is responsible for leading the company’s vision, strategy, and growth in transforming agricultural energy through technology. As seen in her, she is passionate about leveraging technology to solve real-world problems in agriculture, particularly reducing food loss and improving farming efficiency

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with Anihan Technologies.