Levi Farrand - Deep Forestry

Levi Farrand, CEO of Deep Forestry, joins The Digital Forester podcast to share his incredible journey from adventure guide and naval diver in Australia to leading a cutting-edge forest tech company in Sweden. Deep Forestry is pioneering fully autonomous LiDAR-equipped drones that can fly beneath the forest canopy, creating highly detailed digital twins of forests for inventory, planning, and carbon projects. Levi takes us through the early startup days—bootstrapping with his co-founder, recruiting his first engineer from a rock-climbing gym, and proving that their system could map every tree in a stand with accuracy rivaling or surpassing traditional field methods. We dive into the challenges of scaling AI-driven forest mapping, the future of sub-canopy drones in commercial and conservation forestry, and why Levi believes democratizing access to this technology will transform decision-making in forests around the world. If you care about data-driven forestry, carbon transparency, and the future of forest management, this episode is a must-listen. Topics Covered: Levi’s journey from adventure guide and naval diver to tech founder Building Deep Forestry from a startup idea to a global solution The role of autonomous LiDAR drones in creating digital twins of forests Startup challenges: bootstrapping, networks, and early adopters Precision and accuracy in sub-canopy forest measurements Applications for inventory, carbon markets, and time-series monitoring Pricing models and the shift from hardware to service-based delivery Scaling innovation: batteries, lighter LiDAR, and AI pipelines Opportunities in diverse forests vs. monocultures Levi’s vision for democratizing access to affordable forest mapping tools