By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media
Singapore-based Polybee has attracted new investor backing, closing a $4.3 million seed round that reflects sustained interest in automation technologies aimed at modern crop production. As a spinoff from the National University of Singapore, Polybee assembled a high-profile lineup of backers led by elev8.vc, Paspalis and SG Growth Capital’s Seeds Capital, with additional participation from Hort Innovation and the Temasek Foundation, alongside a group of angel investors active across agriculture and technology. The breadth of the investor base points to early conviction in the company’s technology innovation, which harnesses artificial intelligence and automation to help growers better anticipate yields, gauge harvest timing and automate pollination activities that have traditionally relied on manual steps.
The capital raise comes at a time when growers are under increasing pressure to make production decisions with greater precision while managing persistent labor and cost challenges. As farming operations gain scale, and as greenhouse production becomes more data-driven, traditional methods of visually assessing crop development and yield potential are becoming harder to sustain.
Polybee has introduced an AI-powered agent that coordinates a fleet of autonomous drones equipped with computer vision and machine learning. These drones move through protected and open-field environments capturing high-resolution crop data, forecasting yields and enabling contactless, autonomous pollination. Described by the company as a “central nervous system for farming operations,” the system is designed not only to monitor crop traits such as fruit count, size and growth patterns, but also to perform pollination tasks that are often labor-intensive, time-sensitive and directly tied to production outcomes. According to AFN, these drones are currently being deployed across commercial operations growing crops including spinach and broccoli.
Polybee CEO Siddharth Jadhav stated on LinkedIn, “After spending years validating the business model from California to Australia, our customers are consistently reaping a 3x ROI on our product. Through precise timing of harvests, vegetable growers are walking away with 15 percent higher yield. Drone pollination in greenhouses has enhanced fruit set when the price is high in shoulder seasons.”
In an industry where margins are tight, and expenses and high, any lapses in harvest time predictions and can cut right into profits. As one grower explained, Polybee’s technology allows growers to plan harvests in a way that is “objective rather than subjective.” This is because drones replace manual efforts to walk crop rows while taking high resolution images and collecting data, allowing the growers to harvest the crop at the precise right time and maximize the yield.
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