By Lynda Kiernan

Early-stage venture capital firm Calibrate Ventures has led a $14.5 million Series A for FarmWise, a pioneer in the development and building of autonomous farming robots. Also participating in the round were farming company Wilbur Ellis, Xplorer Capital, and Alumni Ventures Group.

This funding builds upon the $5.7 million the company raised in December 2017 through a round led by venture fund Playground, and including Felicis Ventures, Basis Set Ventures, and Valley Oak Investments. 

Founded in San Francisco in 2016 by CEO Sebastien Boyer and CTO Thomas Palomares, FarmWise manufactures sophisticated adaptive farm machinery that employs AI, computer vision, and deep learning to effectively and precisely weed, care for, and thin crops, giving farmers the best opportunity to increase yields while also reducing herbicide use. And with the integration of machine learning algorithms, FarmWise’s machines, which have to-date efficiently removed weeds from more than 10 million plants, have the unique ability to learn additional farming tasks over time.

“Looking ahead, our robots will increasingly act as specialized doctors for crops, monitoring individual health and adjusting targeted interventions according to a crop’s individual needs,” said Sebastien Boyer, co-founder and CEO, FarmWise.

Robotic Rescue

Aside from helping farmers meet demand for organic and chemical-free produce, increasing crop yields, reducing inputs and their costs, and combating climate change – which are all weighty considerations when developing agtech solutions for agricultural production – this technology addresses the scarcity of labor, which is a more nebulous but critical pain point in the food production process.

Although California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Zoe Lofgren recently introduced the Agricultural Worker Program Act (AWPA), which could provide a possible path to citizenship for illegal farm workers currently in the country, the measure is being seen as not enough to solve such a complex issue, and as such, mechanization is being touted as a more concrete and long-lasting solution for farmers.

Challenges for farming operations are not only connected with securing sufficient labor forces, but paying them. Daniel Rothrock, controller of Piepel Premium Fruit, explained during the panel, How Can Agtech Tackle the Farm Labor Crisis? at GAI Agtech Week 2017 that Piepel Premium Fruit spends about $10,000 per acre on labor – 60 percent of which is dedicated to harvest. The company has seen a 30 percent increase in wages in the past three years and is facing another 20 percent increase by 2020.

The intersection of climbing demand for organic produce, scarcity of labor, and rising costs of production is where agtech technologies, such as those developed by startups such as FarmWise, can play a critical role for the $17 billion U.S. vegetable farming sector.

To strengthen its ability to meet these challenges and its place as a pioneer in the ag robotics market, FarmWise announced a partnership with Michigan-based product development supplier Roush in April of this year to develop and test vegetable weeding robots in the state of Michigan. 

The initial contract between FarmWise and Roush calls for the development of a dozen prototypes of a self-driving robot weeder this year, and additional units for production in 2020, and FarmWise Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Thomas Palomares noted how Roush is the ideal partner for the endeavor.

Now, with the capital gained through this Series A, FarmWise plans to expand the company’s robotic engineering and operations teams, and to enhance its R&D initiatives on plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.

“Each day, one FarmWise robot can weed crops to feed a medium-sized city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants,” said Boyer. “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.”

“We are thrilled to support FarmWise…” said Jason Schoettler, co-founder of Calibrate Ventures, “… 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.”

 

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to GAI News. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.