In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 34: Hylio
In this episode, I talk with Arthur Erickson, CEO and co-founder of Hylio, a Texas-based company developing precision drone systems for agriculture. Arthur shares why they chose equity crowdfunding on StartEngine over traditional venture capital, citing the importance of control and understanding the ag industry’s unique economics.
We discuss how to craft a compelling video pitch, build early momentum, and navigate the platform’s algorithm-driven visibility. Arthur also reflects on building community-driven support and explains why the future of agriculture looks like a robot revolution.
Key Facts Hylio:
- Goal: To deliver the ultimate performance in aerial crop spraying.
- Recently raised about $2.5 million from the equity crowdfunding platform called StartEngine.
Alex’s Top Findings:
- Choosing Equity Crowdfunding Over Traditional VC. Hylio chose StartEngine for its flexibility, independence, and better alignment with its hardware and agricultural focus — areas VCs often misunderstand or undervalue. “ We started looking at other options, and equity crowdfunding was very attractive. It was important for us to maintain control because we don’t think a lot of the VCs understand our industry, but we do. We have our finger on the pulse, and so we wanted capital to grow and expand, but we wanted to be able to call all the shots and not be restricted by a square peg in a round hole type of tracking system for our progress. Ag is cyclical. There are ups and downs, and you have to roll with the punches and really understand the farmer and the end market to be successful here. And none of the institutional investors we talked to really got it up, so that’s why we did it.”
- Preparation is Key: Financials and a Launch Plan. StartEngine requires two years of audited financials. A war chest (at least 10% of the raise) is needed for marketing. Building early investor momentum is critical. “ You have to get audited financials, and this is an SEC requirement. StartEngine is the broker; they act as the middleman between you and retail investors, serving as the watchdog and enforcing SEC regulations. To maintain their certification as a broker, they require you to have at least two years of audited financials.”
- Early Bird Discounts: Creating Urgency. Offering early investment perks is a strategic lever — sometimes offering up to 40% share price discounts for early investors.“ When the campaign first launches, there are a number of StartEngine early bird perks. StartEngine decides what perks you wanna offer, like percentages. In our case, you could stack perks as different percent categories and if you invested, reserved on our starter engine page before it launched, and invested within the first two weeks and over certain amounts, so there’s different volume tiers as well, then you could get as much as 40% discount is what it was on the share price”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
