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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

farm robots

Future Acres Kicks Off $3M Equity Crowdfunding Campaign for its Ag Robotics Platform

Future Acres, a new startup developing a robotic platform for farms, announced today that it has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign that aims to raise $3 million.

The first product that Future Acres is building is Carry, a self-driving robot meant to, as the name suggests, carry crops around a farm. Carry uses GPS, computer vision and machine learning to autonomously navigate a farm (it can also be tele-operated), and can lug 500 lbs. of crops across all types of terrain and inclement weather. The electric robot has a 7 – 10 hour battery life and can travel 6 – 10 miles on a full charge.

Introducing Future Acres

If this sounds familiar, that’s because Carry is similar to Augean Robotics’ Burro, which also autonomously hauls up to 500 lbs of food and gear around the farm.

Future Acres is also looking beyond the simple act of carrying things and towards developing a true autonomous platform that can be used to perform other tasks around the farm like precision spraying, disease detection and, eventually, crop picking.

Farms in the U.S. face labor shortages caused by factors such as COVID restricting the movement of migrant labor and a patchwork of differing state and federal labor laws. Even if a farm is able to secure all of the workers it needs, that work is still hard and done under harsh conditions like extreme heat.

This is where farm automation can help. By automating some of the less skilled work involved with harvesting, such as carrying bushels around, human workers can focus on more delicate tasks such as picking, or coordinating logistical processes.

Right now, Future Acres has one prototype currently being tested. With the new funding it raises, the company will focus on developing the next version of Carry. Future Acres CEO, Suma Reddy, told me by phone last week that the company will work with farms to figure out what business model(s) work best, but right now, the Carry system costs between $800 and $1,200 a month for the hardware and software.

Saga Robotics Raises €9.5M for its UV Light Ag Robot

Saga Robotics, which makes an autonomous robotic platform for agriculture, announced this week that it has raised €9.5 million Euros (~$11.35 million USD). Hortidaily writes that the investment was led by Nysnø Climate Investments with ADM Capital Europe and the Rabo Food & Agri Innovation Fund, with participation from other Norwegian investors.

The Saga Robotics’ platform, dubbed “Thorvald,” is modular and can accomplish a number of different tasks on a farm. We recently wrote about how its UV-light capabilities are being used to kill off mildew on crops without the use of pesticides. According to the Saga Robotics website, Thorvald is also capable of “picking fruits and vegetables, phenotyping, in-field transportation, cutting grass for forage, spraying and data collection/crop prediction.”

Saga’s funding comes at a time when robotics are poised to play a more central role in our agriculture system. In traditional agriculture, farm workers often have to deal with extreme temperatures and other environmental conditions and hazards. The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated and worsened these issues by impacting the flow of labor and becoming a source of outbreaks because of the cramped working conditions.

Robots can potentially help alleviate some of the stresses on farms. In addition to being able to work around the clock and in extreme heat, robots also also don’t get sick and reduce vectors for human-to-human disease transmission.

Saga is among a wave of robotics companies working on agricultural solutions. Small Robot Company, Farmwise, Advanced Farm Technologies, and Augean Robotics are just some of the companies coming to market with automated farm solutions.

Root AI Raises $7.2M for Its Harvest Robots and AI

Root AI, which makes an automated solution for harvesting crops grown on indoor farms, announced today that it has raised $7.2 million in seed funding. PJC, First Round Capital, Outsiders Fund, Accomplice and AgFunder all participated in the round, as well as Jason Calacanis. This brings the total amount raised by Root AI to $9.5 million.

Root AI’s robots use a combination of computer vision and artificial intelligence to identify when a crop like tomatoes or stawberries need to be picked. Part of the Root AI pitch is that it’s a “cross crop” harvester, so it can use different grippers to pick different shaped fruit. The robot’s AI helps the grippers pick crops with just the right amount of pressure to remove the food, without damaging it.

Root AI - Going Cross-Crop

Root AI sits in the nexus of a number of different societal and market changes. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, robots were being eyed as a way to keep farms working even through dangerous heat and other conditions. With the pandemic still raging across the country, farms have reported outbreaks among its workers while the federal government has provided no rules to protect them. On a broader level, the pandemic has accelerated the potential for robot adoption because robots do not get sick and reduce the amount of human-to-human contact during the meal journey.

Root AI is also coming during a growth period for indoor farming. AppHarvest is building a massive indoor farm in Kentucky. Wilder Fields is converting an old Target in Chicago into and indoor farm. Even UK grocer, Ocado, has gotten into the indoor farming game with its Infinite Acres venture.

One key to making those indoor farms successful will be the economics of indoor farming. Will they be able to produce as much food as those high-tech systems cost? Robotics like those from Root AI, which will offer its robots as a service could help. In addition to not getting sick (or spreading sickness), robots like Root AI can run 24 hours a day.

Root AI is not the only harvesting ‘bot in town. Other players in the indoor farming robot space include MetoMotion, and outside on the farm, Traptic and Advanced Farm Technologies each have harvesting robots.

Small Robot Company Gets £200,000 VC Investment, Surpasses Equity Crowdfunding Goal

Small Robot Company, which makes precision agricultural robots, confirmed today via email that 7percent Ventures has invested £200,000 pounds (~$259,000 USD) in the company and is now Small Robot’s lead investor.

Small Robot is running its equity crowdfunding on CrowdCube, and has raised £2,003,880 ($2,596,000 USD) from 1670 investors so far. What we don’t know right now is whether 7percent’s money is included among that tally, or if it’s a separate investment. We’ve reached out to Small Robot to clarify.

Regardless, Small Robot has far surpassed its initial £700,000 fundraising target, and the campaign still has one day left to attract new investors. Advertising 7percent’s participation could be a way to goose last minute money from those on the fence or considering investing even more.

Small Robot makes autonomous robots for precision farming, and its robotic roster includes Tom, which maps the farm and Dick, which zaps weeds with electricity to kill them. Eventually they’ll add Harry, a no-till drilling robot. The Tom robot is currently in working trials on 20 farms across the UK.

This is the second equity crowdfunding campaign for Small Robot. The company crowdfunded £1.2 million ($1.6 million) in 2018, and has also received £1.4 million ($1.8 million) in non-equity funding from a UK government innovation fund.

When I spoke with Small Robot Company Co-Founder, Sam Watson Jones, last month, he said the company was going the equity crowdfunding route because there weren’t very many European early stage VCs that would fund companies still developing their product. Evidently Watson Jones found one.

As I also noted back in January, Small Robot Company is going to have to bulk up its warchest because there is some well-funded competition in the precision ag robot space. Farmwise raised $14.5 million and French company Naïo raised more than $15 million for their respective robotic weed killers.

But it’s not all just money, and with today’s investment from 7percent, Small Robot Company may also get some VC-backed connections and support that the crowd just can’t offer.

FarmWise Raises $14.5M for Autonomous Weeding Agriculture Robot

FarmWise announced today that it has raised a $14.5 million Series A round of funding for its autonomous agriculture robots. The round was led by Calibrate Ventures with participation from Wilbur Ellis, Xplorer Capital and Alumni Ventures Group. This brings the total amount raised by FarmWise to $20.2 million.

Farmwise builds self-driving robots that use a combination of computer vision and AI to identify weeds among crops and precision mechanical tools to remove them without the need for herbicides. According to the press release sent to The Spoon, FarmWise says its robots have removed weeds from more than 10 million plants. The company will use the new funding to scale up its robotics engineering and operations team and further develop its R&D efforts on “plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.”

Agricultural applications are ripe for automation. The industry is facing a labor shortage, and even when running at full employment, farm work is hard work involving long days out in the hot sun. Robots can run all day without needing a break or suffering heat stroke. To help fill in the human labor gap, there are plenty of agbots getting funding and currently making their way to market, including Augean’s Burro, Advanced Farm Technologies‘ strawberry-picking robot and Bear Flag Robotics‘ autonomous tractors.

Robots like those from FarmWise can also accelerate the move towards more organic farming. With mechanical weed removal, there’s no need for spraying herbicides and pesticides. And it’s pretty safe to assume that FarmWise isn’t just in the business of pulling weeds. If it’s, err, wise, it would build out its robots to be a more versatile platform with a broad array of applications that can be used across a farm.