GroGuru, a tech company that makes software and systems to monitor soil conditions, announced July 23 that it had hired one of its investors and advisors to run the company.
Patrick Henry takes over the CEO role from company cofounder Farooq Anjum, who becomes chief technology officer.
GroGuru’s hardware-enabled software allows growers to measure the levels of moisture and salinity in the ground and analyze the data to inform optimization of water and fertilizer use.
Henry, an entrepreneur, currently runs QuestFusion, a firm that provides strategy consulting for startups.
Prior he headed cable networking company Entropic Communications, which he ran for 11 years, including through its IPO in 2007, then for seven years after.
Previously he was president and CEO of Pictos Technologies and at LinCom Wireless. He also served as a vice president and general manager at LSI Logic and a senior vice president at C-Cube Microsystems.
“(Henry’s) experience and skill sets are the perfect fit for moving the company from our initial products and technology to high volume product commercialization and large-scale deployment of our revolutionary hardware-enabled software as a service for the agriculture industry,” Anjum said.
The company, started in 2014, joined the EvoNexus incubator program in late 2016.
GroGuru recently received a $250,000 investment from Radicle Growth, a San Diego-based accelerator fund backed by agtech investors, by winning a pitch competition the fund hosted.
Reach reporter Sarah de Crescenzo at sarahd@sdbj.com.
