Bovonic
Bovonic is a Bay of Plenty agritech company that makes QuadSense, an inline milk sensor system that detects mastitis in dairy cows during milking.
- Category
- Ag-tech and Climate
- Fund
- NZVC I & NZVC II
- Website
- bovonic.com
- On TechMates
- 2 episodes
What Bovonic does
Bovonic's patented sensors sit inside the milking cup liners and measure milk conductivity to flag both clinical and subclinical infection early, helping farmers cut antibiotic use, lower somatic cell counts and save the labor spent manually checking cows. QuadSense launched at Fieldays in June 2024.
The secret
Each quarter of an udder is its own comparison group. Reading all four cup liners at once means the healthy quarters set the baseline for the sick one, so QuadSense flags mastitis with a red light in about a minute without the farmer knowing anything about that cow beforehand.
Why NZVC invested in Bovonic
NZVC invested in Bovonic from NZVC Fund I and NZVC Fund II. We file the company under Ag-tech and Climate on the portfolio wall.
We backed Bovonic because mastitis is one of the costliest problems in dairy farming, and QuadSense catches it earlier and more cheaply than the manual routines farmers rely on today. The team built hardware that farmers actually adopt, with strong early installation numbers and measured returns on New Zealand farms. Dairy is a global industry, and a proven product at home gives Bovonic a credible path into much larger export markets.
Bovonic in the press
- Bovonic sales rose by half as QuadSense went overseasChannelLife · 21 August 2026
- Accolades for Bay as dairy sensor goes globalSunLive · 8 July 2026
- A Bovonic study put QuadSense at $29,547 a season for New Zealand dairy farmersRural News · 20 February 2026
- Bovonic raised funding to take QuadSense into the United Kingdom and IrelandIT Brief UK · 30 October 2025
- Bovonic raised investor funding in the month QuadSense launchedRural News · 26 June 2024
Bovonic on TechMates
Beyond Startup Hype: 5 Founders on Real Difficulties
You hear five founders in twelve minutes on the parts of startups that do not make the highlight reels. Shaun Quincey on finding the real buyer, Liam Kampshof on cowshed prototypes, Steven Zinsli on stopping what is wrong, Nick Damiano on deciding to found, and Anna Henwood on loving uncertainty.
A joint episode, alongside Simfuni, Andromeda Surgical, Extraordinary and Stickybeak.
Bovonic on TechMates
Why Big Tech Failed at This Simple Farming Task
You hear how a sharemilker's son built a sensor that catches mastitis in 30 seconds and got it onto 145 farms in a year. Liam Kampshof explains why manual checks fail, why farmers with no subsidies only buy on ROI, and how the company moves to the UK next.
- Mastitis 101: why manual stripping fails at scale and how quarter-level conductivity catches it earlier.
- Adoption: about 145 farms in year one; near 5 percent in early regions.
- New Zealand edge: no subsidies, so ruthless ROI; practicality meets biomedical engineering.