kariOpen call · founding partner
Help take Kari from Estonia to Europe's suckler farms.
Kari is herd management software for beef suckler farms, built on a working Estonian herd. We are looking for a founding partner, a person or an organisation, to build the company that takes it to farms in Estonia and across Europe.
What Kari does
Kari helps a suckler farm decide which cows stay, which heifers to keep and which bull to use, from the farm's own records. Recording happens at the crush, on the phone without signal or on printed sheets read back from a photo; the overview is on a computer.
From the same records Kari prepares what the farm owes EPJ and PRIA, and the farmer checks it and sends it. Much of what a farm has to record for the registers is also what it needs for its own decisions, so it is written down once.
Kari is used every day on a working herd and is being tested on other farms. This winter it opens to every suckler farm in Estonia, free through 31 May 2027 in exchange for feedback. Grazing, winter feed and finishing work at a basic level and are being developed. A direct connection to the registers has been asked for; until then the farmer sends.
The European opportunity
Every European country asks its suckler farms to report their animals, each with its own register, rules and language. The official systems are built for reporting; deciding what to do with the herd is left to the farm. Kari is built for both: one herd management core that is the same on every suckler farm, and the reporting adapted to each country.
We have mapped the registers, the reporting rules and the herd software of every EU country. Estonia comes first: about 1,345 keepers of suckler cows with about 27,000 cows, of which the 300 to 400 farms with 30 cows or more are the first to serve. The next countries follow where farmers and partners ask. Across the EU, about 490,000 holdings kept suckler cows in 2020.
Kari earns a yearly fee per farm and a rate per cow that falls as the herd grows. The price is set together with the first farms.
Sources: Tõuloomakasvatus 2/2025 (keepers with suckler cows on 30.06.2025, from the animal register); PTA, animal data on 01.04.2025 (27,163 suckler cows); Eurostat, farm structure survey 2020, ef_lsk_bovine (holdings with suckler cows, EU27). The 300 to 400 farms with 30 cows or more is our estimate from the herd-size shares in the first source.
What a founding partner would contribute
Farmer relationships and market entry
The first paying farms in Estonia, through the people and organisations farmers already trust.
Industry and international partnerships
Working with recording bodies, registers, processors and partners in the next countries.
Funding and development capacity
Grants, projects and investment that let Kari grow faster than its subscriptions alone.
That can be one experienced person, or an organisation with a network in agriculture.
What we bring, and how a partnership would work
A working product in daily use on a real herd, and its continued development: new functions, the connections to the registers as they open, and the reporting for each new country. Stefan Gernert is an agronomist and Savory Institute accredited professional who advises farms in Estonia and abroad. He runs an Angus and Hereford suckler herd at Niiduveis in Estonia, designs Kari and uses it on that herd every day.
During the test, Kari is run by Niiduveis OÜ. The plan is to found Herdloop OÜ with the founding partner, as the company that will own and run Kari. The share, what each side contributes and how it is earned are agreed together and written down. In any arrangement, each farm owns its own data.
Get in touch
Write a few lines: what you would bring, and why beef farms. Every message is answered.