At Tech.eu, we regularly speak to Ukrainian startups and founders deeply affected by Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But what happens when you're a European startup that has built much of its business in both Russia and Ukraine?

In early 2022, Swiss agtech startup OneSoil found itself in exactly that position.

I spoke to Katya Kheistver, OneSoil's CPO and COO, about how the company survived the loss of its core markets, rebuilt its business, and is now betting on AI to make agricultural expertise more accessible.

When 70 per cent of your market is suddenly at risk

OneSoil was founded in 2017, following the launch of the Sentinel-2 satellite programme. Its core technology relies on satellite imagery, and it initially developed a platform that let farmers monitor their fields remotely.

Farmers could track vegetation indices, identify potential problems, plan field inspections, and share observations with colleagues.

This was particularly valuable in countries such as Ukraine, where farms can cover thousands of hectares. A farmer managing 2,000 hectares cannot physically inspect every field every day. Satellite monitoring helps identify where attention is needed and where action could protect yields.

Agriculture remains a cornerstone of Ukraine's economy, accounting for approximately 7.6 per cent of GDP in 2025, down from 10.9 per cent before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, according to World Bank data. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, producing one of the highest wheat yields in the world.

OneSoil initially offered its mobile application for free. This allowed farmers to benefit from the technology while helping the company develop its crop and field-boundary recognition models using information farmers provided about their fields. It subsequently developed OneSoil Pro, which offers more advanced precision agriculture features, including variable-rate application of fertilisers and seeds for farmers using compatible machinery.

The company had planned to launch OneSoil Pro in early 2022. At that point, approximately 70 per cent of its audience was in Russia and Ukraine, and those markets were expected to be central to monetising the product.

“We had invested considerable time and investor capital into developing it,” recounts Kheistver.

“Then the war began, and we had to reinvent ourselves almost overnight.”

The company immediately decided not to monetise in Russia. It continued supporting Ukrainian farmers, but it was understandably not the right moment for many of them to invest in precision agriculture. It also had to relocate its Ukrainian employees, cut costs, and rethink its international strategy.

“We went through three rounds of layoffs, and every one was extremely painful,” shared Kheistver.

“Before the war, we had approximately 70 to 80 employees. Today, we have around 30, having started to rebuild the team.”

Over the following two years, all three co-founders departed. Rather than shut down, OneSoil restructured its leadership team and began rebuilding its business around international markets, precision agriculture, and AI.

Finding new markets — and unexpected success in Africa

OneSoil continued expanding its presence in Europe, particularly Poland, while establishing teams in Brazil and Argentina and exploring opportunities in South Africa. Initially, Latin America appeared particularly promising because its agricultural sector shares characteristics with Ukraine and Russia: large fields, advanced machinery, and significant potential for variable-rate applications.

However, the region proved much more difficult than expected. Brazil and Argentina are highly competitive agricultural technology markets. Farmers also face significant economic pressures, including taxation, limited government support in some markets, and the financial risks associated with weather and agricultural production.

Competition also comes from agricultural input companies that bundle free digital tools with their existing products, creating an expectation among farmers that such technology should be available at no additional cost.

Surprisingly, South Africa outperformed Latin America. Africa is now OneSoil's second-largest region by revenue after Europe, with South Africa contributing the majority of that revenue. The company also operates in Kenya and Tanzania and is expanding towards Nigeria.

For Kheistver, it was an important lesson: the market that looks most attractive on paper isn't necessarily where a product will gain the strongest traction.

From growth at all costs to financial sustainability

According to Kheistver, in 2020 and 2021, much of the startup ecosystem believed companies could focus on growing a single metric, such as user numbers, and eventually be acquired for a substantial amount.

“We moved away from that approach towards building a business with positive unit economics.

We're operating much more like a conventional business than a company focused primarily on venture capital-driven growth.

That shift helped us survive.”

Since 2024, OneSoil has reported 106 per cent revenue growth compared with 2021, expanded across Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and rebuilt parts of its engineering team.

The company also secured $1 million earlier this year from existing and new investors, including Belarusian serial entrepreneur Yuriy Melnichek.

OneSoil reached break-even in 2025. It expects negative EBITDA in 2026, which Kheistver attributes to deliberate investment in scaling the business.

“Our underlying economics are much healthier now. We've rebuilt the team, identified our strongest markets, and developed a more sustainable foundation for growth,” shared Kheistver.

An AI agronomist in every farmer's pocket

OneSoil has launched what it believes is the first globally available AI agronomist feature in its mobile app. It aims to make agricultural expertise accessible to farmers worldwide with as little friction as possible.

Farmers can download the app, select their fields on a map using predefined field boundaries, and start monitoring them immediately, without needing a sales call or even providing an email address. The AI agronomist is available as an optional paid feature.

OneSoil currently has approximately 140,000 annual users monitoring around 70 million hectares through its application. That's comparable to the reach of some products from much larger agricultural companies, despite their considerably greater marketing resources.

The company wants OneSoil to become farmers' first digital agricultural tool, not a product designed exclusively for large farms with expensive machinery.

“We're not designing exclusively for highly advanced farmers with expensive machinery. We want OneSoil to be a farmer's first digital agricultural tool and then help them progress towards more sophisticated precision agriculture practices.”

The AI agronomist combines OneSoil's existing agricultural data with five specialised agents designed to guide farmers. Kheistver explained:

“What makes our system different from a general-purpose AI model is the information and agricultural expertise behind it.

We combine satellite imagery, weather data, field boundaries, crop recognition, and productivity-zone models."

This gives the AI detailed information about a farmer's fields before the conversation even begins.

“We've also developed our own technology for processing satellite imagery efficiently, including filtering snow and shadows and combining images.”

Unlike general-purpose AI systems, OneSoil's AI agronomist is designed to recognise when it needs more information before making a recommendation. In agriculture, inaccurate advice can have significant financial and operational consequences, particularly for decisions about crop treatments, fertilisers, and pesticides. To address this, OneSoil has built safeguards into its system that prompt the AI to ask follow-up questions or request additional evidence rather than immediately suggesting a course of action.

“For example, if a farmer suspects a crop disease, the AI might ask them to visit the field and upload a photograph before recommending a pesticide. It needs sufficient evidence before making that recommendation.

That's one of the fundamental differences between our AI agronomist and simply asking a general-purpose model such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. We provide proprietary agricultural data and structure the agents to behave more like agronomists who know when additional investigation is necessary,” explained Kheistver.

OneSoil has accumulated about eight years of historical agricultural data through its platform, which it initially used to develop and test the AI agronomist by comparing its recommendations against known agricultural conditions and outcomes. The company then worked with existing farmers, agronomists, and partners across multiple countries to evaluate the technology in real-world conditions before releasing it commercially.

Building trust alongside technology

Despite AI's growing capabilities, moving farmers toward more advanced precision agriculture remains challenging. Farmers often need personal support before investing in new machinery or changing their agricultural practices. Technology alone doesn't eliminate the need for human expertise.

OneSoil also operates in a competitive precision agtech market, alongside large agricultural input companies and regional technology providers. However, the company is not trying to become a comprehensive farm management system. Instead, it focuses on field monitoring and actionable insights.

“We want to help farmers understand what's happening in their fields, identify problems, and make better agricultural decisions,” asserts Kheistver.

“Other platforms may offer some overlapping features, but their primary focus is often managing farm operations.”

OneSoil believes its independence is another advantage. In some markets, farmers are tired of agricultural input companies approaching them with digital services tied to selling fertilisers or other products. Trust also extends to how the company handles farmers' data. While agricultural companies have asked OneSoil to sell its data, it says it has never sold farmers' personal data and doesn't intend to.

“You might make money from selling that information once, but what happens to the relationship with your users afterwards?

Trust is extremely important in agriculture.

Our terms and conditions make clear that we don't share farmers' personal data.”

For Kheistver, maintaining that trust is central to the company's positioning.

“We want farmers to trust that our recommendations are designed to help them make better decisions.”

Why Africa could drive OneSoil's next phase of growth

OneSoil sees significant growth potential in Africa, where investment in agriculture, changing farming practices, and a younger generation of digitally confident farmers are creating opportunities for agtech adoption.

According to Kheistver, countries including Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria are seeing growing interest in more advanced agricultural methods, while farmers increasingly have the opportunity to adopt digital technologies without going through every stage of traditional agricultural digitalisation.

“Many farmers are relatively young and comfortable using mobile technology, so they can move directly to more advanced solutions,” she explained.

Access to agricultural expertise is another challenge. In some regions, qualified agronomists are expensive or difficult to reach, creating an opportunity for AI-powered advice.

For a company forced to rebuild after losing access to much of its original market, the opportunity is to bring years of satellite-derived insights and agricultural expertise to farmers who previously had limited access to either.

“Farmers don't necessarily need to find and pay for an agronomist. They can download the app and get agricultural guidance much faster, in real time.”