Irrigation as a Service Entrepreneur Series: Story #4
Beyond the Sale: How ennos Ag is Redefining Manufacturing Partnerships
While many manufacturers view their role as ending with a sale, Karin Jeanneret Vezzini, founder of the solar pump manufacturer ennos Ag, has a different perspective. For Karin, the success of ennos Ag is directly tied to the growth and impact of its distributor network. By using advancements in remote pump monitoring, she is making ennos Ag’s solar pumps more accessible to farmers, thereby extending the company’s impact far beyond the initial transaction.
Ennos Ag: Powering Farms Through Distribution
Offering a range of surface solar water pumps from 0.5 to 2 horsepower, ennos Ag caters to various farm sizes and applications. The company's competitive edge comes from its strong R&D foundation and commitment to continual innovation, which together deliver high-quality, efficient solar pumping solutions.
Equally important is its emphasis on partnership. Building strong relationships with local partners is a key focus, with the company providing training and support to ensure customer satisfaction and effective product use. Over time, ennos Ag has developed an extensive network of local distributors, making its solar pumps accessible to farmers across the globe.
From Law to Leadership: A Founder's Journey
For Karin and her co-founders, the easy part was creating the pump. The vision for a more effective surface solar pump came after they engaged directly with smallholder farmers in India. From there, the team designed and field-tested the ennos Ag models now used worldwide.
The hard part was distribution. Getting a strong product into farmers’ hands is challenging, and Karin faced a dilemma. She could license the design to other manufacturers, which offered faster commercialization. However, she feared that route would fail to reach the smallholder farmers who needed the pumps most.
Instead, Karin made a career leap. She left her law career to become the CEO of ennos Ag, driven by a new mission: to build a distribution network that would effectively reach those smallholder farmers. This involved traveling the world to find distributors, and since 2016, her efforts have brought ennos Ag pumps to farmers in 30 African countries and many others.
Last-Mile Focus: Enhancing Irrigation Management
The product was effective, and distributors were supportive, but Karin knew that this wasn’t enough. She understood that maximizing the company’s impact depended on innovating last-mile delivery. A major step forward was the rollout of remote monitoring for ennos Ag’s solar pumping systems. This technology was key, as it allowed farmers to optimize their water management while also enabling irrigation as a service (IaaS) providers to effectively operate and scale their businesses.
The challenge was that while other manufacturers offered remote monitoring, distributors were slow to adopt it. These systems were often seen as expensive add-ons, requiring extra hardware and costly subscriptions. Many distributors didn’t see a clear benefit that justified the cost and complexity.
To address this, ennos Ag integrated remote monitoring technology directly into the pump’s control system and included it in the standard sales price. This single move removed the barriers to adoption: there was no extra equipment to buy and no subscription fees to pay.
This approach gave distributors and farmers access to advanced capabilities like water-use tracking, location monitoring, and remote control. For distributors, it unlocked the potential for new applications like IaaS. For smallholders, it meant gaining reliable access to irrigation and making more informed decisions about when and how to irrigate.
Cultivating Partnerships: The Future of Irrigation
Karin’s dedication to her distributor partnerships does more than just sell pumps; it actively widens water access for smallholders. These relationships are positioning ennos Ag to support promising new models like Irrigation as a Service, which holds great promise for making irrigation more accessible and affordable for smallholder farmers.
This commitment to improving their distributors’ business processes is a strategy that sets ennos Ag apart from other manufacturers. This approach makes ennos Ag a company to watch, and it will be interesting to see how it continues to leverage its unique position in the irrigation value chain to benefit smallholders.
About the Irrigation as a Service Entrepreneur Series
The Irrigation as a Service (IaaS) Entrepreneur Series highlights eight entrepreneurs who are developing innovative solutions to improve water access for smallholder farmers. In January 2025, DWFI brought together eight founders from seven countries for a workshop in Uganda, marking the largest-ever gathering of companies dedicated to IaaS. This series explores each of these companies’ journey with providing access to irrigation as a service – an alternative to pump ownership by farmers. Each founder offers a unique approach to providing this service. The series aims to share real-world experiences to guide future business development, research, and investment in IaaS, ultimately enhancing agricultural productivity in the Global South.
Erin Anders, DWFI Senior Program Manager, and Arianna Elnes, DWFI Communications Specialist, also contributed to this story.
