Silver Fern Awarded BADC Challenge Grant to Expand AI-Powered Demand Planning

Silver Fern has been awarded a $100,000 Challenge Grant from the Bluegrass AgTech Development Corporation (BADC). The award was presented July 29 at BADC's Round 3 ceremony at the University of Kentucky's Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. According to BADC, Silver Fern is the first software company the organization has backed.

Silver Fern accepts the $100,000 BADC Challenge Grant at the July 29 ceremony in Lexington. Photo: Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

The grant funds RESTOCK™ (and FORECAST™), the Work Suite demand-planning modules for the horticulture industry. The company uses AI-powered machine learning with data points like weather, economic factors, sell-through, margin, and much more to predict what will sell, where, and when, so growers can keep their customers' inventory optimized. In a 2026 pilot, RESTOCK™ delivered a material improvement over the company's existing forecasting and replenishment algorithms.

"This grant accelerates first-time access to AI-powered machine learning that helps growers drive profitability to their bottom line," said Adam van Wingerden, Silver Fern's Chief Executive Officer. "This is technology only the largest corporations have had access to. Thanks to AI and our team's investment, it's going to be available to growers up and down the market, specifically consignment and pay-by-scan growers getting inventory to the right store at the right time. In early development we've already seen double-digit accuracy improvement against real live data. We're super excited about this, and we thank BADC for believing in the vision."

BADC is a Lexington nonprofit founded in 2022 and housed at the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research Campus. Its Challenge Grant program was seeded with $1 million from the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) and $1 million from the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund.

The Round 3 ceremony at UK's Martin-Gatton College. Photo: Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

Silver Fern thanks BADC, executive director Jacob Ball, and BADC's founding partners: the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and Alltech.

Silver Fern is a Kentucky-based software company. Its Work Suite platform runs day-to-day operations for horticultural businesses. The company's roots are in the greenhouse business.