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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Small Robot Company

Small Robot Company Crowdfunds £4M for its Ag Robots

British agriculture robot company, Small Robot Company, announced today that it has raised £4 million (~$5.5M USD) through its equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. This brings the total amount for funding raised by Small Robot to £11 million (~$15.12M USD).

Small Robot Company uses a combination of robotics and artificial intelligence to help farmers manage their fields. Small Robot makes a trio of robots dubbed, Tom, Dick and Harry that map fields, zap weeds, and do no-till drilling, respectively. The whole system is tied together with the Wima AI that uses computer vision to identify weeds and gather per-plant intelligence.

This is Small Robot’s fourth trip to the crowdfunding well, and this particular campaign got off to strong start in July when the company raised £2M (~$2.75M USD) on its first day. Small Robot isn’t the only ag robotics company going the equity crowdfunding route. Future Acres, which makes an autonomous driving platform for a number of farm is crowdfunding as well.

Agriculture is an area that is ripe for automation as the industry faces ongoing labor shortages and extremely harsh working conditions. Robots can work in the fields in extreme heat all day without injury or sickness, and can bring precision to tasks such as weeding to reduce the need for harsh herb and pesticides.

One indicator of the opportunity in agriculture automation is the fact that Bear Flag Robotics, which makes autonomous driving technology for tractors, was acquired by John Deere earlier this month for $250 million.

If you’d like to learn more about the state or agriculture and robotics, watch the video from the “Crops and Robots: How Automation is Changing Agriculture” panel we held at our ArticulATE food robotics conference in May that featured Aubrey Donnellan, Founder and COO of Bear Flag Robotics (Spoon Plus subscription required).

Small Robot Co. Raises Another £2M Through Equity Crowdfunding

Agtech startup Small Robot Company announced today that it has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign and already hit its goal of raising £2 million (~$2.77M USD). This is the fourth time Small Robot has turned to equity crowdfunding, where it has previously raised £4.3 million. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Small Robot to £9 million.

Small Robot Company uses a combination of robots and artificial intelligence to help automate certain agricultural needs. Small Robot’s products include the Tom, Dick and Harry robots. As we’ve covered previously:

  • Tom uses cameras and computer vision to precisely map a field of its plants and weeds
  • Wilma is the AI that analyzes those images to gather per-plant intelligence and weed identification
  • Dick is an autonomous weed zapper that is armed with an electric wand and information from Wilma to precisely electrocute individual weed without the need for chemicals
  • The company will eventually add a third robot, Harry, to its lineup that will do no-till drilling.

Equity crowdfunding has been a popular choice for robotics companies looking to raise money. Fellow agtech startup Future Acres, which makes a robotic platform that will initially be used to haul crops, launched its own crowdfunding campaign earlier this year. Other non-agtech robot startups equity crowdfunding include Piestro, Kiwibot, DaVinci Kitchen, Blendid and EBar.

Some of the benefits of equity crowdfunding include being able to raise money without the scaling pressures that come with traditional VC money, as well as building a diverse, enthusiastic community that can provide real world feedback and evangelize a product and campaign. For more, check out the video from a panel we devoted to equity crowdfunding at our recent ArticulATE food robotics conference in May (Spoon Plus subscription required).

UPDATE: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated Small Robot raised this funding through a private campaign plus a match with the U.K. Government. That particular money came through earlier financing. We regret the error.

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.

The UK’s Small Robot Company Equity Crowdfunds its Precision Ag Robots

Based in the UK, the Small Robot Company is actually making its second trip to the crowd for money, and launched its second such campaign earlier this week on CrowdCube.

Equity crowdfunding is a trend we’re watching closely this year. That’s where instead of traditional venture capital, startups let everyday people (with certain restrictions) invest in and receive an actual piece of the company.

Small Robot makes precision agriculture robots that the company hopes will eventually move farmers away from broad chemical spraying of crops and monoculture of plant species in fields. Small Robot has a multi-part, autonomous robot solution it’s building that includes:

  • Tom uses cameras and computer vision to precisely map a field of its plants and weeds
  • Wilma is the AI that analyzes those images to gather per-plant intelligence and weed identification
  • Dick is an autonomous weed zapper that is armed with an electric wand and information from Wilma to precisely electrocute individual weed without the need for chemicals
  • The company will eventually add a third robot, Harry, to its lineup that will do no-till drilling.

Small Robot’s “Tom” robots are currently in the working prototype phase, and in use on 20 farms in the UK. The company aims to ramp up production and manufacturing this year and go live on more farms by the end of 2020.

I spoke with Sam Watson Jones, Co-founder, Small Robot Company by phone this week, and he said his ultimate goal is to empower farms with precision agriculture to such a degree that it’s done on a plant-by-plant level. Farmers will know where each individual seed is planted and automate custom care for each plant as it grows. This means reducing fertilizer use, and planting a variety of crops next to each other to limit the spread of crop disease, maintain nitrogen levels and pollinate more efficiently.

To help it get there, Small Robot is turning to the crowd, again. Previously the company received £1.4 million in non-equity funding from a UK government innovation fund, and in 2018 raised £1.2 million in equity crowdfunding through the CrowdCube platform.

On Monday of this week, Small Robot kicked off its second CrowdCube campaign and has already met its goal of raising £700,000. I asked Watson why his company didn’t go with the traditional VC route this time.

“VCs are a bit different in the UK,” he said, “There are very few early stage VCs to fund stuff that requires more development. We knew we had a load of farmers who were excited about what we could develop. ” Crowdfunding, Watson said “allowed us to get angels and people who would put ten quid in. It’s been a good forum for us to capitalize on the branding and PR.”

As with any investment, there are risks involved, and given that this crowdfunding is happening in the UK, there are restrictions around where people can invest from and how much. Check the campaign’s details for more information.

Small Robot Company is actually the second robotics company we’ve covered that has gone the equity crowdfunding app. On the other end of the meal journey is Miso Robotics, the maker of Flippy, which is using SeedInvest to try and raise a $30 million Series C round.

Small Robot will definitely need to beef up its warchest as it looks to expand outside the UK. Other players in the autonomous precision ag and weed-killing robot space include Australia’s Agerris, which raised $6.5 million (AUSD) last year, and U.S.-based Farmwise, which raised $14.5 million in 2019 as well.

For now though, Small Robot Company’s pitch to big crowds for tiny agriculture seems to be attracting big dollars.