Community Member of the Month: Karevo

Last week we successfully held our Bootcamp program and celebrated the winning team at the Growth Alliance Networking Summit 2026. Reminiscing on past editions, we want to spotlight last year’s winner: KAREVO!!! 

Karevo automates agricultural quality control with an AI-based potato and onion sorting machine. 

For this interview, we talked to Benedikt Kessler, CEO and co-founder of Karevo who grew up on a potato farm in Bavaria and studied Mechanical Engineering at TUM, before creating his agricultural potato sorting system. 

What originally drew you to agriculture and technology? Was there a specific moment or experience that stuck with you? 

I grew up on a potato farm and often helped my parents sort potatoes. After studying mechanical engineering, I realized I could combine my background in agriculture with technology to improve these processes. 

What inspired you to found Karevo in 2022? 

We saw that quality control in potato processing was still highly manual, especially on family farms. We believed that AI could make existing sorting systems smarter and more efficient. 

How do first conversations with farmers usually go when you introduce your technology? 

Very practical, farmers want to know quickly if the system is reliable, easy to integrate, and actually useful in daily operations. 

What is one small feature or detail you're particularly proud of that most people wouldn't notice? 

We always focus on modular design and making everything easy to access. There’s a lot of thought put into it behind the scenes. 

Have you seen any small changes on farms that made you think, “This is exactly why we’re doing this”? 

I’m in close contact with farmers, and when they tell us the machine worked very well and made their daily work easier, that’s very satisfying. 

When did you first realize your work could make an environmental difference? 

The fact that the machine can be retrofitted into existing sorting lines means existing equipment can be used much longer instead of being replaced. 

What would you love for people outside agriculture to understand better about your work? 

Maybe not so much about my work specifically, but about farming in general. There are many people working outside every day, often 12 hours or more, to produce regional food and they genuinely embrace that responsibility. 

What’s one small win that felt much bigger than it may have seemed from the outside? 

We’ve hired some really great people recently, and while that might not look like a big milestone from the outside, it’s been a major step for us. 

You won the Growth Alliance Bootcamp Demo Day in 2025. What has changed for Karevo since your win? 

Quite a lot! We launched our product in October 2025 and now have already 10 machines up and running and scaled our team. 

Find out more about here. For more insights into the newest agriculture trends and Karevo, make sure to check out them Karevo blog! 

If you are interested in joining our startup community please fill our this community application form. 

Interested in AgriFood? Check out our Growth Alliance! 

About the Growth Alliance: 

The Growth Alliance is an initiative of Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank and TechQuartier, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Home Affairs. Through specialized programs and partnerships with the business sector, academia, and policymakers, we support founders—from the ideation phase to scaling—in developing sustainable solutions for the agricultural and food sectors.