From DDAccelerator to research partnership – startup FlowerPen team up with CTU Prague on smart plant care

When Daniel Janota, Jan Tonner and Daniel Riley joined the Danube Digital Accelerator with their startup FlowerPen, they had a clear vision and a motto that summed up their mission perfectly: “Plant care made easy and fun”. The three CTU students were building a smart device that combined physical sensors, mobile app and global community platform – and like most early-stage startups, they were still figuring out how to get there. One year later, they have taken a significant step forward. 

That step is a funded research partnership with the Faculty of Information Technology at CTU Prague, secured through the OP TAK Programme. The project Modular Sensor System for Comprehensive Real-Time Plant and Crop Care with Predictive AI Analysis will advance FlowerPen from TRL (Technology Readiness) 5 to TRL 7 over an 18-month development period, bringing the product to the threshold of full commercialization.

For those who haven’t come across FlowerPen before, it is a Czech startup working at the crossroads of IoT hardware, artificial intelligence, and everyday plant care. Their core product is a compact sensor device that monitors the conditions around a plant in real time (measuring soil moisture, temperature, light intensity etc.) and feeds that data into a web application that helps users keep their plants healthy. The accompanying app not only gives users a clear overview of all their monitored plants but also connects them with a global community of fellow plant enthusiasts.

What makes FlowerPen technically ambitious is the layer of AI and machine learning being built on top of that sensor data. The system is designed to recognise patterns – detecting when a plant has been watered, predicting when it will need water next and eventually generating personalized care recommendations based on each plant’s history and environment. 

The collaboration with FIT CTU is more than a funding arrangement – it brings genuine research capacity to the project. Part of the work will take place at FIT CTU research centre, a facility with expertise in AI and machine learning, sensor testing, drone-based monitoring and IoT systems. This environment will allow the team to push the technical boundaries of the product (refining the AI models, improving hardware reliability and testing the system across a wider range of real-world conditions). 

The Danube Digital Accelerator gave the FlowerPen team 4 months of structured mentoring, expert feedback and business knowledge – that kind of foundation that makes a funding application credible. The OP TAK Proof of Concept grant is a direct continuation of that trajectory: a Czech national funding instrument designed to bridge the gap between an early-stage idea and a market-ready product, awarded to teams that can demonstrate both technical readiness and commercial potential. 

For CapTTict, this outcome illustrates what the accelerator was built to enable – not just to give startups a moment in the spotlight, but to help them build the skills and connections needed to take the next real step.