A working vineyard makes a thousand decisions before fermentation. Graft exists to make the most consequential ones – like spraying for Powdery Mildew – less of a guess.
Why Graft exists.
Graft started in an attic in Ann Arbor, after a conversation in a Bordeaux tasting room. Benson had been sitting with Aymeric De Gironde, head winemaker at Chateau Troplong Mondot, and walked away sure of one thing: this craft was too old, too careful, and too exposed to be running on pre-harvest guesswork.
A few months later, he and Jacob started prototyping. Michigan Build & Launch gave the idea a deadline. Market research gave it a focus: the Powdery Mildew problem kept coming up in every grower conversation across Burgundy, Bordeaux, Napa, and Sonoma.
The solution took shape fast, with over 16 wineries validating a need for plot specific spray forecasts that could replace costly fixed calendar sprays. Soon after, we were invited to the America 250 Startup Competition and won $25,000 in front of a legendary panel of judges like Sarah Friar (CFO, OpenAI), Chris Larsen (Chairman, Ripple), Tim Draper (Founder, Draper Associates), and Rosie Rios (Former U.S. Treasurer).
Graft isn't a winemaker's assistant. It doesn't touch the creative work. It just makes the logistics, like not knowing when you should spray your crops, something you can anticipate.
Where it came from.
Where it's going.
Bordeaux conversation
Benson meets Aymeric De Gironde at Chateau Troplong Mondot. Leaves convinced the winemaking industry needs to innovate.
The attic
Benson and Jacob start prototyping in the attic of their house in Ann Arbor. Graft Systems is born.
Michigan Build & Launch
Selected for the Michigan Build & Launch accelerator. The concept becomes a working prototype.
First winery conversations
Interviews with Napa and Sonoma winemakers shape the product. Yield estimation surfaces as the consistent pain.
Fungicide Management
Learning to anticipate when wineries should and shouldn't spray their vineyards with fungicide to combat mildew becomes the focus.
On-site visits
Meeting winemakers where they work — walking rows, understanding workflows, refining the tool in the field.
Ground truthPLANNED
Collecting real harvest data to validate and improve the model against actual yields.
LaunchPLANNED
A working and integrated platform that provides live weather feeds with models and sensory data to provide actionable spray recommendations long before sporulation
The hands on this.
Benson Klein
Junior at Michigan studying Economics and Art History. Experience from Morgan Stanley, the Nantucket Wine and Food Festival, and Chateau Troplong Mondot. Directs the team, builds features, talks to wineries.
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Jacob Tkaczyk
Senior at Michigan studying Computer Engineering. Technical experience from IBM. Michigan Build & Launch Project Manager. Leads hardware development for the modular cluster capture system.
LINKEDIN →Michigan Build and Launch Team
Kayan Shah
Freshman studying BBA & PPE. Leads outreach to wine producers, manages discovery calls, develops pitch content. Bridges product and market to position Graft as a trusted solution.
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Parth Sinha
Freshman studying Computer Science. Works on the ML pipeline — building a data augmentation system that generates realistic vineyard conditions to improve model robustness in the field.
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Viraaj Nindra
Freshman studying Computer Science. Builds ML and AI-driven features that deliver detailed vineyard-based insights, refining data pipelines to improve model accuracy.
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Arnav Chittiprolu
Freshman studying Computer Science. Builds AI-powered compliance and ML features that deliver vineyard-level insights and translate complex legal frameworks for wineries.
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Ashka Patel
Freshman studying BBA & Information Sciences (UX). Developed Graft's brand toolkit and led the redesign of the user dashboard and web platforms.
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