Have you ever driven past a park and seen the retic going off all guns blazing while it was tipping down with rain?
Many innovations begin not with ambition, but a simple observation.
For the founders of SWAN Systems, that problem was standing in a remote corner of the Pilbara: 17 centre pivots irrigating crops across an arid landscape, with a surrounding environment that couldn't afford the consequences of a wrong call.
Tim Hyde had spent his career in agricultural science and horticulture, working across industry and government before establishing AFS Agriculture (consulting) in 2010.
Ivor Gaylard brought more than 35 years of experience in irrigated agriculture, including large-scale broadacre and horticultural farming, before leading grower and water co-operatives in regional WA.
When Ivor joined AFS in 2012, the two began working on the problem together - and it was through AFS that the core irrigation and nutrient management logic underpinning SWAN was developed.
The system they built brought together local weather data, soil moisture readings, irrigation history, crop stage, nutrient levels, and water availability to answer a deceptively simple question: how much water does this crop or park or golf course actually need today, and when should we apply it?
It worked. As both founders knew, the existing process was entirely manual, demanding constant staff input, and impossible to scale.
"People were flying blind,” said Tim Hyde.
“They had plenty of data from weather stations and soil probes, but it was all in different silos. Nobody was bringing it together to give a clear answer to the simplest question: how much water do I need today?"
That tension - between a proven concept and a commercially unworkable process - led to the founding of SWAN Systems in 2016.
‘SWAN’ in the name stands for ‘Simple Water And Nutrients’ system, but also gives a nod to the main river in WA’s capital city.
Tim, Ivor, and Rod Campbell - who brought deep corporate and agri-banking experience to the table - set out to rebuild the system as an online platform any irrigator could use.
Working closely with NGIS, a Perth-based digital mapping specialist, they developed an MVP and piloted it in 2018 across agricultural and open space sites on both sides of the country.
Ecosystem assistance
The WA startup ecosystem played a critical role in the company's early development.
Being part of the Spacecubed community gave SWAN visibility and credibility with investors and strategic partners. A string of awards - including the Western Australian Spatial Excellence Awards, the WAITTA INCITE Startup of the Year, and the WA Innovator of the Year - provided independent validation that the platform had genuine commercial relevance.
Grant support, including a $590,000 AusIndustry (federal government) Accelerating Commercialisation grant, helped take it from pilot to market.
Traction
Early commercial traction came from irrigators growing vegetables, permanent crops, and pasture across eastern Australia and New Zealand.
Growers were quick to see the value in a platform that could make sense of their data. Recognition followed: winning the Rabobank FoodBytes! AgTech Award brought SWAN to the attention of a global agriculture investment audience and signalled that the platform was competitive on an international stage.
This momentum carried SWAN into international markets. The platform is now active across the western United States, including California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona, with early growth into Europe.
SWAN's reach extends beyond agriculture.
The company has established water stewardship partnerships with some of the world's largest technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, helping to manage irrigation across urban parks and green spaces as part of those companies' commitments to water-positive operations.
In New South Wales alone, SWAN is now working with multiple city councils - including Penrith, Liverpool, Hornsby, Woollahra, and Ku-ring-gai - to optimise water use across hundreds of parks and playing fields.
One of the platform's defining competitive advantages has been its hardware-agnostic approach.
SWAN works alongside whatever sensors, probes, and controllers a customer already has in place, removing a common barrier to adoption and turning hardware providers into collaborators rather than rivals.
The platform aggregates data from flow meters, weather stations, soil moisture probes, satellite imagery, and water test results into a single, actionable view. This gives irrigators the confidence to make informed decisions rather than relying on gut feel or fixed schedules. Customers have reported reductions in water use of up to 30%, alongside measurable improvements in crop health and yield.
Going Global
Ten years since its foundation - the 10th birthday was in May 2026 - SWAN was recently named a winner of the World Economic Forum's UpLink Water Resilience Challenge, placing it among a global cohort of organisations developing scalable, practical solutions to water security - a fitting acknowledgement for a company whose origins were firmly in the practical.
SWAN's ambition is to be the global gold standard in water and nutrient management, covering more than one million hectares of irrigated cropping by 2032. It's a target that would have seemed remote from those early Pilbara spreadsheets. But then, so would California.
"Water is finite, but our ability to innovate is not,” said Tim Hyde.
“We want to make sure that every drop of water used in agriculture is optimised. It's better for the planet, and it's better for the bottom line."
You can connect with Tim Hyde, Ivor Gaylard and Rod Campbell on LinkedIn, and learn more about SWAN Systems here.
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