May 2, 2019

Robotic agtech startup TerraClear has closed on a $6.1 million funding round led by Madrona Venture Group, and including unnamed existing investors. This round brings total capital raised by the startup to $13 million since its launch.

Headquartered in Belleview, Washington, and with offices in Grangeville, Idaho, TerrClear was founded in 2017 by Brent Frei, the former CEO of Onyx Software and co-founder of SmartSheet, a publicly-traded software company that helps automate work processes. Through its business, the company advances technologies such as robotics, aerial sensing, machine learning, high-accuracy GPS, and neural networks to improve farmers’ lives and farming practices through the automation of time consuming tasks.

With these abilities at hand, TerraClear has identified a low-skilled, time-consuming, physically-demanding but important problem faced by farmers for as long as agriculture has been practiced – picking rocks. As the company states on its website, “Every farmer has picked rocks and every farmer wishes he didn’t have to.”

Initially, fields are surveyed by drones, and then a neural network classifies and localizes existing rocks, noting and mapping the size and location of each rock. Once completed, removal is carried out by an automated picker that can either be mounted on a human-drive piece of machinery or, if applicable, could be mounted on a driverless autonomous vehicle.

Under the terms of the funding, TerraClear will add Matt McIlwain managing director of Madrona and the first investor in SmartSheet, to its Board of Directors.

“The value that he and the team at Madrona brought to Smartsheet was significant,” said Frei. “He had exceptionally good advice along the way, he was very good at mentoring the leadership and our strategy. So in a lot of ways when he said he was interested in being on [TerraClear’s] board, I felt honored. We’re still at a very small stage right now relative to the things he’s involved in. To get his focus on this, there’s just nothing but upside.”

The company also recently brought on Trevor Thompson, a former Navy SEAL and Rhodes Scholar, in the role of president.

“This financing adds Matt McIlwain and his Madrona team to our board. Matt has been key in many of the most successful tech companies in Seattle, and is someone I trust implicitly to make us better,” said Frei. “And, we add Rhodes Scholar and former Navy SEAL, Trevor Thompson, to the role of President. Trevor’s wide-ranging 14-year career consists of leading world-class teams through exceptionally complex and high-stress environments.”

With 15 current employees, TerraClear has opened a fully-equipped laboratory and testing facility in Frei’s hometown of Grangeville, Idaho, a town of about 3,000, where the TerraClear team can trial and demonstrate its technology. The company is planning a season of testing this summer across the thousands of acres of farmland surrounding Grangeville.

“Right now it’s just making sure that that thing grabbing the rocks is as foolproof as possible,” Frei told GeekWire. “The market is huge and we’re laser-focused on building exactly what farmers need to make their lives easier.”

Not only will TerraClear’s technology make farmers’ lives easier, but it will also save on labor costs, and reduce damage to costly farm machinery in the field. And if development advances at pace, the company is optimistic that it can have a beta product being used in the field by next year.

-Lynda Kiernan