Rudrojas Kunvar, 16, developed Evion, an AI tool that helps farmers analyze the health of crops.
The tool collects aerial data from drone footage of the fields.
Kunvar developed Evion to make this data more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses.
When he met with a venture capitalist last year, 16-year-old Rudrojas Kunvar received an offer that would excite even the most laid-back teenager: receive $300,000, drop out of high school and run his AI startup full-time.
“It’s definitely been a tough few weeks of deliberation,” Kunvar, who lives in Germantown, Maryland, told BUSINESS INSIDER (BI). “That’s a lot of money.”
Kunvar had spent the previous summer developing Evion, a free AI crop analysis tool that uses images from simple camera drones that farmers can buy themselves. The AI model analyzes the images and creates a map of crop health that farmers can integrate into their existing platforms or access via a dashboard. Green means healthy, red means unhealthy.
“Farmers can use it to predict the future of their fields,” Kunvar said. “You can see which areas need more water or fertilizer instead of just spraying everywhere.”
As with construction and defense, drones are also transforming agriculture in the United States. According to researchers at Michigan State University, there were about 5,500 agricultural drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration in 2025, up from about 1,000 in 2024.
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Kunvar said Evion can help farmers save money because the targeted data reduces uncertainty about the health of fields. This reduces the chance of wasting water or fertilizer.
Evion is positioned as a cost-effective alternative to companies that market expensive drone products or services. Instead, farmers can buy inexpensive camera drones, take their own photos and upload the data themselves.
“It is intended to be a more affordable model for small to medium-sized businesses,” explained Kunvar.
Once Evion was built, Kunvar worked with Jacob Lee, who has experience developing tech tools, to expand its reach. The first pilot launch took place in autumn.
Ultimately, Kunvar declined the $300,000 offer because he wanted to ensure that his product remained accessible and not just used to maximize profits.
Little AI progress in agriculture
The idea for Evion came about during Kunvar’s sophomore year at Poolesville High School in Montgomery County, when he attended a community festival. A third of Montgomery County is designated as an Agricultural Reserve, i.e. protected land to preserve rural areas.
“I asked a farmer how he knows when disease is imminent or what slight discoloration means,” Kunvar said. “Basically he said he had to guess. I spoke to a few more farmers and found they all gave similar answers.”
Kunvar, who said he has always had a passion for technology, was surprised. “We’ve seen a lot of AI advancements across different industries,” he said. “Why is there so little happening in the agricultural sector?”
Kunvar originally wanted to develop its own fleet of fully autonomous drones that could collect the data, but after discussions with mentors and calculations, decided to take a different approach. Instead, he studied drones and identified the main cost factor: the multispectral camera.
“The camera was the biggest expense. I asked myself, ‘What if there’s a way to get similar data without this camera? What if I could use a simple camera?'” Kunvar said.
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Partnerships with agriculture nonprofits
He pointed to Tesla and its autonomous vehicles as proof that it can work. Unlike Waymo and other companies that use lidar, Tesla relies on cameras.
With the logistics and AI model in place, the founders sought customers through cold calling via email and LinkedIn. However, they achieved better results by partnering with agriculture-focused nonprofits and organizations to reach farmers. Today the technology helps farmers in North America, Southeast Asia and India.
Going forward, Kunvar plans to further expand Evion and explore opportunities in other areas, including AI infrastructure. “There is a lot of uncertainty in entrepreneurship, especially in startups, but I have learned that there is beauty in uncertainty,” Kunvar said. “There were times when nothing was working, and then you get the smallest success and you think, ‘Wow, maybe I can do this after all.'”
Read the original on Business Insider US.