EXAFAN SA

Their core work

EXAFAN SA is a Spanish agri-tech SME based in Zaragoza, a major agricultural hub, specializing in livestock production technology with expertise spanning feed efficiency, precision feeding systems, and the integration of IoT into farm operations. In the Feed-a-Gene project, they contributed direct industry knowledge on feed processing from local resources and by-products, and practical deployment of precision feeding techniques across pig, poultry, and rabbit production systems. Their participation in IoF2020 — one of the EU's largest smart farming pilots — demonstrates a deliberate move into data-driven and IoT-enabled agricultural solutions. As a market-facing SME, they function as an industry end-user and commercial validator in research consortia, bringing real production environments and market uptake pathways that purely academic partners cannot provide.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

EXAFAN's earliest H2020 engagement (2015) was firmly rooted in the physical and biological layer of livestock production — feed composition, by-product valorisation, genetics, and modelling of feeding outcomes for specific species. By 2017, their focus shifted clearly toward the digital layer: IoT connectivity, smart farming platforms, and integrating data flows across the food chain. This is not a break from their roots but a logical extension: a livestock technology company adding digital intelligence on top of operational know-how, moving from "what to feed" toward "how to monitor, decide, and automate" across the farm.

EXAFAN is building toward the intersection of traditional livestock expertise and precision digital agriculture, making them a strong candidate for future projects combining animal production with farm automation, sensor networks, or AI-driven feeding systems.

How they like to work

EXAFAN has operated exclusively as a consortium participant across both projects, never as coordinator, which positions them as a specialized industry contributor rather than a project architect. Both projects they joined were large European consortia — IoF2020 in particular was a flagship large-scale pilot with dozens of partners — indicating comfort working within complex, multi-actor environments while contributing a defined industry role. For potential partners, this suggests EXAFAN is a reliable and experienced consortium member that brings real-world production context without the administrative overhead of a lead partner.

Despite only two projects, EXAFAN has accumulated 111 unique consortium partners across 19 countries — a remarkably broad network for an SME, driven largely by IoF2020's exceptionally large multi-partner structure. Their reach spans most of the EU, with no apparent concentration in a single region beyond their Spanish base.

What sets them apart

EXAFAN occupies a niche that few Spanish SMEs fill: direct operational experience in livestock production systems combined with proven participation in large-scale digital agriculture pilots. This dual grounding — feed science and IoT integration — makes them a credible bridge between traditional agri-food industry practice and the precision farming technologies that Europe's agricultural sector is being pushed to adopt. For consortia targeting real-world deployment and market validation in the livestock segment, EXAFAN brings something that research institutes and large agri-corporates typically cannot: a working SME context with skin in the game.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Feed-a-Gene
  Largest single project by EC funding (EUR 217,038) and the source of EXAFAN's deepest technical expertise, covering precision feeding, genetics, and sustainability across three livestock species.
• IoF2020
  One of the EU's largest agri-food IoT pilots, giving EXAFAN exposure to a continental-scale smart farming network and marking their strategic pivot toward digital agriculture.