The funding from Calibrate Ventures and other investors will be used by FarmWise to further develop its autonomous farming robots
Image: FarmWise secures $14.5m in Series A funding. Photo: Courtesy of Capri23auto/Pixabay
FarmWise, a developer of autonomous farming robots, has secured $14.5m (£11m) in Series A funding led by Calibrate Ventures and existing investors including Wilbur Ellis, Xplorer Capital and Alumni Ventures Group.
FarmWise stated that it will use the funding to grow its robotic engineering and operation teams, along with boosting its research & development (R&D) efforts on plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.
Founded in 2016, FarmWise develops adaptive robots for agriculture. The start-up is supported by a team of 25 farming and artificial intelligence (AI) experts from MIT, Stanford and Columbia, develops autonomous machines which are claimed to farm every single plant for greater yield, improve farmer’s profits and a healthier environment.
FarmWise co-founder and CEO Sebastien Boyer said: “Each day, one FarmWise robot can weed crops to feed a medium-sized city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. We are now enhancing the scale and depth of our proprietary plant-detection technology to help growers with more of their processes and on more of their crops.
“Looking ahead, our robots will increasingly act as specialised doctors for crops, monitoring individual health and adjusting targeted interventions according to a crop’s individual needs.”
The firm believes that farmers at present need eco-friendly processes that can address the rising demand for organic produce and increasing regulatory initiatives for more sustainable agriculture.
The AI-robots can perform farming several functions
FarmWise claims that its autonomous, AI-enabled robots have been designed to solve farmers’ challenges by performing a variety of farming functions including weeding and providing personalized care to every plant in the field.
Using machine learning models, computer vision and precision mechanical tools, its robots can cleanly pick weeds from the field, leaving crops with the best opportunity to thrive while taking away harmful chemical inputs. Till date, the company’s robots have removed weeds from more than 10 million plants.
Calibrate Ventures co-founder Jason Schoettler will join FarmWise board of directors.
Schoettler said: “We are thrilled to support FarmWise, which has managed to bring a radical idea from concept to commercialization in under three years. This is a testament to their uniquely talented team, problem solving capabilities and deep understanding of their customer and market.
“FarmWise is poised to fundamentally disrupt farming processes and we are excited to play a role in their future.”